The Brood (1979)

A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, while a series of brutal attacks committed by a brood of mutant children coincides with the husband's investigation.

essaywhu

The ending to this film is terrifying. Overall, I'd say this is a great horror film although the premise of experimental psychoanalysis is so 1970's, it hurts.

10 years ago

Zeltaebar

The movie grabs you right from the start with some intense acting from the great Oliver Reed. His presence is highly beneifcial to the movie as a whole and is well complemented by Cronenberg's deft hand at directing. There is plenty of tension and mystery, but also horror as we are introduced to the murderous little beasts that populate this movie. The marriage of the supernatural with psychology is interesting, something rarely seen today, and even though it places the movie in a particular place and time, it all works very well. A good movie, though not for the squeamish.

9 years ago

Siskoid

David Cronenberg's divorce film, The Brood, is a horror film with all the tropes, but also defies those tropes as often as it can, making for a very pleasurable experience. At the very weird center of the piece, a therapy movement based on role-playing has squishy consequences for participants' bodies (I did say Cronenberg), and a woman undergoing therapy at its retreat may be responsible for rage babies going and killing the people she feels wronged her, which puts her small daughter in danger, and it's quite clear trauma begets trauma. And it's Cronenberg (I did say that already, right?), so it's also full of whacked out disturbia, especially given the fact there's a child involved. Oliver Reed plays the psychiatrist/guru with smoldering intensity, and it's proper that the film starts on him. From there, we get a mix of over-reacting and under-reacting characters, as if everyone is in shock, each in their way. I sure hope the director's acrimonious divorce wasn't really like this, but it must have been EMOTIONALLY like this.

4 years ago

More info & statistics

5.6% of the viewers favorited this title, 0.9% disliked it

Currently in 5 official lists

Activity

necrophage checked this title

6 hours ago

lydia_distracted checked this title

8 hours ago

Asiaattack checked this title

22 hours ago

krochak checked this title

2 days ago

dulaman checked this title

2 days ago

MovieWatcherGuy checked this title

4 days ago

Friends

Log in to see which of your friends have seen this movie

BFI's 100 Cult Films

107 movies · At #15

TSZDT's The 1,000...

1000 movies · At #91

Jennifer Eiss's 500...

502 movies · At #302

TSPDT's 1,000...

1504 movies · At #697

The Criterion Collection

1534 movies · At #935