Written by: PBF
David Cronenberg has said that The Brood was inspired by the custody battle for his daughter that he went through with his ex-wife. After watching this, my guess is that the process was unpleasant.
Frank Carveth’s (Art Hindle) wife Nola (Samantha Eggar) is under the care of Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed) who practices a questionable form of therapy called Psychoplasmics. Dr. Raglan encourages his patients to “show him” their emotions, which generally will physically manifest somehow. For example, at the beginning of the film we see a session in which a man is speaking to his father (Dr. Raglan is acting as the patient’s father) and takes his shirt off to reveal sores of some kind that have developed as a manifestation of his feelings toward his father. This practice places Raglan as a genius to some, however, not to Frank. Nola, like Raglan’s other patients stay in a facility, and Candy, the Carveth’s daughter regularly visits her mother there. On one occasion, after picking Candy up, Frank notices bruises and scratches on her back. Furious, Frank confronts Raglan and threatens not to take Candy to visit her mother any longer. Raglan advises that this would be inappropriate at this point in Nola’s therapy and also makes it clear that he cannot legally do that as his wife is there legally and has every right to see her daughter. This causes Frank to seek legal counsel to file suit for psychological damage to his wife. We observe through sessions in which Raglan is acting as various members of her family, that her mother beat her as a child and her father did nothing about it. While discussing her mother with Raglan, he tells her to “show it” and as she is releasing her rage, her mother is murdered by something or someone while taking care of Candy. Similar events occur while discussing her father and Candy’s teacher usually. As Frank tries to piece together what the creatures are that are killing people in his family’s life, he speaks to 2 former patients of Raglan, one of whom has cancer and blames Raglan. He learns that something sinister involving his wife and Raglan is happening and he must stop whatever it is, so that he can save Nola and protect Candy.
This film is hard to categorize. I hesitate to call it horror, only because that usually conjures up images of gallons of blood, intense psychologically disturbing events and the like. There is some blood, and some disturbing scenes, but they are not in rapid succession. Nor are they on the grandiose level one may assume hearing the word “horror.” There is some tension, but most of the time spent in between deaths involves investigation, so you will not be on the edge of your seat much. However, the film does manage to keep the viewer interested, if nothing else, out of sheer curiosity. It becomes clear that the killers are somehow being controlled by Nola, and at first we only get obscured shots. Once we see that they are deformed children of some kind, it’s pretty much a lock that we are going to see this thing through to find out what the hell the deal is with them and what the connection is to Nola. I found the explanation of this to be quite intriguing. Also, after watching the film it seems sort of obvious, and yet you would have no reason to think it which I thought was really well done.
I must hand it to The Brood; recalling it, it seems like I would have found the film slow and perhaps even boring. Yet it was not. There is something in every scene that will keep interest; whether it is Robert Silverman’s performance as the odd, cancer stricken Hartog, the frightening smack of an object against some poor person’s skull or just the camera shot. And yet you hardly notice it at the time (well, except for the skull bashing). I don’t claim that Cronenberg kept me mesmerized at the same level that Fincher seems to do. Fincher almost seems hpynotic whereas (here) Cronenberg sort of softly put his hand on your shoulder without you realizing, yet you pay attention just the same.
The performances are satisfying, the story is interesting and the score is quite good. There really isn’t anything wrong with it, but it will not stand out as exceptional. Just a decent film.
I can certainly recommend it, but I feel the casual movie goer may find this a little more boring than not. Then again, I wouldn’t call David Cronenberg the casual movie goer’s director.
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