(dir. David Cronenberg)
*First time viewing
In The Brood, David Cronenberg explores the
psychological and physical body horrors that would come to define his career.
Not content with making a straight horror film, The Brood combines elements of horror, pseudo-science, psychology,
and melodrama to create a well-delivered allegory exploring the link between
mental ailments and physical abnormalities. The story centers on Frank Carveth,
a father trying to care for his daughter, Candice, while his wife is undergoing
psychoplasmics (a form of psychology that allows patients to release their
psychological trauma through physical manifestations.) When deformed and
genderless children start murdering those close to Frank, he fears for his
daughter’s safety and seeks out the truth behind psychoplasmics.
The
Brood, similar to Scanners,
utilizes a brilliant concept that causes a bit of slowness and heavy exposition
in the first half of the story, but allows for a tremendous climax. While the
film isn’t quite as visually competent as some of his subsequent films, the
final scenes (featuring an impressive and disturbingly unconventional
birth-scene) do contain some of the most wildly horrific images of Cronenberg’s
career. Beyond visuals, the film is held up by an imaginative story about the
manifestations of rage and the fallout of childhood abuse. Like most of
Cronenberg’s films there is a sense of isolation, as if the characters were hermetically
sealed off from the rest of the world, making the consequences more personal
and the events more frightening.
The acting
is oddly emotionally detached at times for a story so centered on the power of
emotions (the exceptions being Samantha Eggar who plays Frank’s disturbed wife
Nola, and Cindy Hinds who plays Candice). It’s difficult to tell if this was
intentional (the fact that Eggar and Hinds are the most emotive actors in the
film does fit the theme) or if it’s just a result of acting quality. While the
acting does make some moments of the film humorous when they should be
otherwise, it does add an interesting wrinkle to the ideas that Cronenberg is
communicating.
Scare Factor: 2/5 The
Brood is effectively eerie and while parts of the film drag, the body
horror that’s delivered in the end makes the whole thing worthwhile. It’s a
gloriously nasty piece of work and you can see Cronenberg flexing his muscles
for the visions of his later films. While it’s clearly the work of someone in
the early stages of his career, The
Brood is essential Cronenberg.
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