The Brood is one of those films that didn’t impress me at first but has grown on me upon subsequent viewings over the years. Despite its shortcomings, this is Cronenberg’s most personal work, blending family drama with his grotesque signature body-horror elements to create one of the defining films in the body-horror genre early in his career.
Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is a divorced father fighting for custody of his young daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds), with his psychotically disturbed ex-wife, Nola (Samantha Eggar), who is receiving special psychoplasmic treatment at Dr. Hal Raglan’s (Oliver Reed) remote Somafree Institute of Psycho-Plasmics. Frank thinks very little of Raglan’s radical and controversial therapy methods and starts digging into the treatment’s effects when he finds bruises on Candice’s back following her meeting with her mother, Nola. Meanwhile, a series of brutal murders of people connected to Frank and Nola occur by what seem to be small, deformed, child-like figures. When Frank realizes that Candice’s life is in danger as well, he embarks on a desperate search for answers before it’s too late.
The film begins with the introduction of an experimental therapy called “psychoplasmics,” which encourages the patients to externalize and release deep-seated emotional trauma, anger, rage, guilt, and resentment. The therapy is based on the premise that these psychological states can manifest physically. The film revolves around this as its central concept, and it takes time to accept and acclimate to it because it’s a fictional theory that doesn’t exist (which is probably why I didn’t like the film right away). But Cronenberg’s realistic tone and his sincere treatment of the therapy’s bizarre nature make it convincing and eerily believable. Also, Cronenberg’s intention in inventing this theory was not to be scientifically accurate, but rather as a metaphor for several ideas he wanted to explore.
The film features a couple of absolutely incredible murder scenes that will remind you of death sequences in Argento’s Giallo films. During the first, the makers cleverly don’t even show the culprit, keeping the viewers in the dark. They reveal the killer during the second killing sequence, which turns out to be a deformed child, startling everyone, including Frank (and the viewers), who makes the discovery. Another intriguing reveal occurs during the autopsy, where it is discovered that the child-like figures don’t have a navel and have bizarre anatomical anomalies, concluding that the child could not have been a result of a natural birth.
The film maintains the mystery of who these children are and what they want, with all of the cards unveiled at the right time at the end. The reveal of how they are related to Nola is genuinely shocking and disturbing, resulting in an absolutely nerve-wracking climax, elevated by cross-cutting between two scenes and Howard Shore’s menacing score, which builds the suspense to a Hitchcockian level.
Cronenberg wrote this film during his tumultuous divorce and custody battle with his ex-wife, making it a deeply personal film in which he explores the concept of psychoplasmics and how repressed rage, anger, and generational trauma can literally birth monsters in which emotions are not abstract but take physical form. Through Candice’s character, the film also draws on Cronenberg’s own life to examine how broken marriages and custody battles may have long-term psychological consequences and damage to children growing up. Finally, the film also delves into the dangers of experimental psychological treatments and their impact on the human mind.
The Brood isn’t without its flaws, with the biggest one being the underdeveloped relationship between Frank and Nola. Although we understand Nola’s character, who suffers from mental illness due to her disturbing childhood involving an abusive mother and a father who ignored and abandoned her, it feels like the husband-wife relationship dynamics are a bit unexplored and not presented with enough depth. We don’t know how they split up, what sort of connection they had, when the difficulties began, or even what kind of relationship Nola has with her kid. As a result, the family drama never feels as emotionally devastating as it is intended to be, undermining the film’s central conflict.
In addition, the film suffers from uneven pacing, especially in the 2nd act, with several scenes lingering longer and overstaying their welcome (like the one with Raglan’s former patient, Jan Hartog, who is dying of psychoplasmic-induced lymphoma, or the lawsuit angle against Raglan, which, even though thematically relevant, feels drawn out), slowing the screenplay’s momentum before the shocking revelations in the finale. The practical effects are ambitious but feel a bit dated by today’s standards. Yet, they don’t stick out like a sore thumb or pull the viewer out of the experience.
Samantha Eggar refuses to turn Nola into a conventional horror villain. Her performance constantly reminds us that beneath the rage is someone who has been emotionally shattered, making her as tragic as she is frightening. Reed, meanwhile, plays Dr. Raglan with the confidence of a man who mistakes certainty for wisdom, and that quiet arrogance makes him every bit as disturbing as the horrors his therapy unleashes. The Brood remains one of the most significant body horror films of all time.
The Brood movie links: Letterboxd, Wikipedia, IMDB
For more movie reviews and recommendations, visit our homepage
1970s 2023 Action Adventure alfred hitchcock black and white classic movies classics comedy Crime criterion collection denzel washington Drama free movies on youtube Gangster Giallo great films Horror indian movies Japanese films lucio fulci Neo noir netflix netflix movies new movies new releases Noir Period Drama police procedural Psychological thriller Revenge reviews ridley scott Sam raimi Sci-Fi Sci fi stanley kubrick supernatural suspense The Genre Junkie Thriller toshiro mifune war Westerns whodunit