The Brood (1979)

Average rating

(63%)

Starring:	Oliver Reed \| Samantha Eggar \| Art Hindle \| Henry Beckman \| Nuala Fitzgerald
Director:	David Cronenberg
Studio:	STARZ HOME ENTERTAINMENT
Run time:	88 mins
Genres:	Horror
Languages:	English
Hearing-impaired:	English
Released:	July 18, 2005
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After the painful breakup of her marriage, Nola Carveth seeks treatment at an experimental psychiatric clinic known as the Somafree Institute of Psychoplasmatics. While there, under the care of Dr. Raglan, the institute's founder, she is encouraged to work through her subconscious feelings of hurt and rage in a rather novel way: through bodily manifestation. Some of the clinic's patients develop grotesque sores, others cancerous growths or tumors. But Nola goes a step further. She gives "birth" to living incarnations of her darkest inner impulses. Once released, these walking ids exact gruesome revenge against Nola's family, especially her ex-husband, for every real and imagined slight that she has suffered at their hands over the course of her troubled life. THE BROOD is one of director David Cronenberg's darkest and most twisted films.

Rating of 4 stars out of 5

Oliver Reed, a doctor experimenting with the new science of psychoplasmics, persuades Samantha Eggar to “shape her rage” and give birth to deformed children with killer instincts in another of director David Cronenberg's disturbing shockers. An intriguing metaphor for both unexplained bodily changes and the mental abuse some parents heap on their offspring, this genuinely creepy and upsetting stomach churner is a modern horror classic. In one of her best performances, Eggar gives a poignant emotional depth to Cronenberg's complex chiller.

Highest rated reviews

3 out of 3 people found the following review helpful:

Why include the cut version?

technobabble from , 24th October, 2007

*** Beware - the US version is the UNCUT version, not the UK version as mentioned in another review, the UK version is CUT and there is absolutely no reason to rent this version! *** This is one of Cronenberg's better earlier forays into his own 'body horror' genre of film-making. A very good and highly original concept and although the actual Brood themselves look silly in their little jumpsuits the idea behind them is genuinely creepy! Oliver Reed gives a good solid performance as always and the ending is a typical shocking Cronenberg ending that lingers in your mind long after the redits have rolled.

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1 out of 1 people found the following review helpful:

the shape of rage

dom bradley from lancs, 27th April, 2006

the brood was once half jokingly described by its director David Cronenberg as 'my version of Kramer vs Kramer'. It is essentially about the effects of divorce on the family and particularly the children.Cronenberg had gone through a messy divorce.Seen this way,it becomes something far more profound than just a gory shocker.Howard Shore's music as ever underlines the sadness at the heart of this film and like so many of Cronenberg's films,it's been misunderstood and dismissed superficially due to the gore.

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