The Brood (1979)

Featured Audience Ratings

• Stella D

  
  significant similarities with zulawski's 'possession' of 2 years later, particularly the misogyny, even more pronounced here. seems both of these films were born of nasty divorce. ollie reed is always a treat, samantha eggar has an unexplained british accent, and the… More
  significant similarities with zulawski's 'possession' of 2 years later, particularly the misogyny, even more pronounced here. seems both of these films were born of nasty divorce. ollie reed is always a treat, samantha eggar has an unexplained british accent, and the guy who plays her husband is at least inoffensive, more than i can say for sam neill in zulawski's film. i think i enjoyed this one more cuz the creepy kids were so much fun to watch. this was part of a wave of backlash against women's lib in horror films of the 70s-80s, that included 'alien' and 'rosemary's baby', but the tone here is very angry, with eggar's character having no redeeming qualities whatsoever, so just too much black/white. still one of cronenberg's best early works so worth checking out

• Jeff "

  
  One of David Cronenberg's earlier films dealing with the body horror genre. Cronenberg's concept for the film is intriguing and bizarre. The Brood features some of Cronenberg's earliest attempts at the body horror genre are clearly seen here. The film manages to be… More
  One of David Cronenberg's earlier films dealing with the body horror genre. Cronenberg's concept for the film is intriguing and bizarre. The Brood features some of Cronenberg's earliest attempts at the body horror genre are clearly seen here. The film manages to be quite creepy, and its also interesting to see Cronenbverg's genius come to fruition. Cronenberg has assembled a terrific cast of actors here. Actor Oliver Reed, Art Hindle and Samantha Eggar deliver strong performances. The Brood is not one of Cronenberg's best films, but it certainly isn't the worst. This is a terrific horror film that like I said, was Croneberg's earliest attempt at the body horror genre, and it succeeds. We see hints of where David Cronenberg would take his career in the 80's. The Brood is a creepy film with a terrific cast of actors. David Cronenberg has made some groundbreaking films in his career, his imagination has changed the face of horror forever. Looking at The Brood you see the work of a confident director that would, in his later films, change the genre, and ultimately create the now famous body horror genre. Cronenberg has pioneered the genre, and The Brood is probably one of the first films to deal with this type of horror. The Brood is an awesome work of early body horror.

• AJ V

  
  Another brilliantly creepy, disturbing, and disgusting movie from Cronenberg. It's really scary and surprising in the end, I really liked it, and if you're a fan of his you should see it too.

• Curtis L

  
  Wow. What an effed up movie. Gotta love the scary red head mom licking bloodly mutant baby scene. I imagine the little girl from this movie was permanently screwed up just for being a part of it.

• Conner R

  
  Completely bizarre, yet approached in such a calm fashion. This is a horror movie that doesn't feel like a horror movie at all, it's a completely different experience. The style is definitely David Cronenberg, but it's horrific on a completely different level. It… More
  Completely bizarre, yet approached in such a calm fashion. This is a horror movie that doesn't feel like a horror movie at all, it's a completely different experience. The style is definitely David Cronenberg, but it's horrific on a completely different level. It isn't just some ridiculous plot about killer kids, it's more about a psychotic divorce between a loving father and a complete nut-job wife.

• Mark H

  
  Unnerving exploration of the psyche follows a controversial therapist who is treating the ex-wife of a husband who seeks to take custody of their daughter. Eerie, deliberately paced rumination on rage and its manifestations culminates in a memorable climax that is truly horrific.… More
  Unnerving exploration of the psyche follows a controversial therapist who is treating the ex-wife of a husband who seeks to take custody of their daughter. Eerie, deliberately paced rumination on rage and its manifestations culminates in a memorable climax that is truly horrific. The graphic degeneration of the human body is a common theme in director David Cronenberg's work and this film is no exception. His script is clearly influenced by the messy real life divorce from his first wife and the subsequent custody battle for their daughter.

• Aaron N

  
  Juliana Kelly: Thirty seconds after you're born you have a past and sixty seconds after that you begin to lie to yourself about it. An early Cronenberg horror flick. Basically that means that not only will the gore be well handled, but presented in a fucked up way. Low and… More
  Juliana Kelly: Thirty seconds after you're born you have a past and sixty seconds after that you begin to lie to yourself about it. An early Cronenberg horror flick. Basically that means that not only will the gore be well handled, but presented in a fucked up way. Low and behold, following mostly a lot of boring plot and characters, the last 15 minutes of this film are insane with disgusting actions involving a terrible birthing process of some crazy children.

• Robert C

  
  An interesting premise. While it's a little slow on the uptake...if you hold out, it redeems itself in the end.

• Cassandra M

  
  A very personal film for Cronenberg who was going through a divorce during the time of its making, The Brood has all the Cronenbergian motifs, plus great characterisation and a great performance from all involved. Dr. Raglan (Oliver Reed) who is experimenting with metaphysical rage… More
  A very personal film for Cronenberg who was going through a divorce during the time of its making, The Brood has all the Cronenbergian motifs, plus great characterisation and a great performance from all involved. Dr. Raglan (Oliver Reed) who is experimenting with metaphysical rage runs the Summerfree Institute. There he encourages his patience to indulge in allowing their inner anger to materialise in warts and blisters on their body. One of his patience is the demented Nola (Samantha Eggar) who has taken Raglan's therapy to the next stage. Her rage is apparently so potent that it results in The Brood, a savage group of dwarfs that emerge from the cysts on Nola's body. Unfortunately, Nola has another child, Candy and when her ex-husband, Frank (Art Hindle) finds that his wife is too unstable to look after their child he suppresses parental access. Nola goes even more insane and the brood ventures out to kill all those she believes have or may cause her harm. Although the carnage isn't excessively violent, the scene where Nola produces one of the dwarfs from a bloody sack and licks it clean leaves a nasty aftertaste. Cronenberg has long been associated with fear of biological change, but is surprising that not many have picked up on his fascination, or dread of organisations. There's the Starliner Towers (Shivers), Keloid Clinic (Rabid), Summerfree Institute (The Brood), ConSec (Scanners), Spectacular Optical (Videodrome), Bartok Industries (The Fly), The Mantle Clinic (Dead Ringers), PildrImage Manufacturers (eXsistenZ).

• Coxxie M

  
  frankly i dont know what to make of this film

• Stephen M

  
  I would still class "The Brood" as the best of early Cronenberg, but I watched it again recently and was slightly disappointed by it. It wasn't as well paced or plotted as I'd remembered. As well as being a continuation of Cronenberg's particular brand of body… More
  I would still class "The Brood" as the best of early Cronenberg, but I watched it again recently and was slightly disappointed by it. It wasn't as well paced or plotted as I'd remembered. As well as being a continuation of Cronenberg's particular brand of body horror, the movie is actually a deeply personal and very perceptive comment on the psychological damage caused to children by their parents' messy break-ups, informed by the director's own recent divorce. Unfortunately, by demonising the mother (Samantha Eggar) and making the father (Art Hindle) a flawless white knight, the movie sometimes feels uncomfortably like a cheap shot at Cronenberg's ex- missus. Up until "Videodrome", Cronenberg hadn't the cachet or the budgets to attract top quality stars to play his leads, though he usually found established stalwarts for the supporting roles: Barabara Steele ("Shivers"), John Saxon ("Fast Company"), Patrick McGoohan ("Scanners") and, best of all, Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar in "The Brood", both of whom are excellent. Compared to Stephen Lack in "Scanners", Art Hindle is charisma personified, but he's still not particularly memorable. For all its faults, this is a uniquely disturbing horror movie, well worth seeing.

• Pierluigi P

  
  Cronenberg delivers his dwarfs of rage with his usually intelligent, fascinating and disgusting pseudo-metafisic plot and atmosphere. this is with no doubt the best of his early works.

• Emily A

  
  Nobody is better than David Cronenberg at creating horror through bodily deformation, and this is one of the best ones. It's creepy to see that the villain is an actual manifestation of a repressed woman's bile (heh) and rage. I love the idea of someone's anger becoming… More
  Nobody is better than David Cronenberg at creating horror through bodily deformation, and this is one of the best ones. It's creepy to see that the villain is an actual manifestation of a repressed woman's bile (heh) and rage. I love the idea of someone's anger becoming so strong that it actually becomes independant of its originator and goes on a rampage of its own.

• Dr Blood  

  
  Nothing happens for over an hour and it isn't much of a horror film at all unless the idea of psychically manifested midgets is scary to you. Boring, insipid, weak, and pointless. I'm sure I could think of a lot more words along those lines to describe this rubbish but why… More
  Nothing happens for over an hour and it isn't much of a horror film at all unless the idea of psychically manifested midgets is scary to you. Boring, insipid, weak, and pointless. I'm sure I could think of a lot more words along those lines to describe this rubbish but why bother? What a complete waste of Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar.

• Lafe F

  
  Any of the scenes with the monster children were superb. There's a great scene in Grandma's apartment and the end escape from the compound. ...Lots of boring stuff in between... I did enjoy Oliver Reed's psycho sessions with his patients; his technique was… More
  Any of the scenes with the monster children were superb. There's a great scene in Grandma's apartment and the end escape from the compound. ...Lots of boring stuff in between... I did enjoy Oliver Reed's psycho sessions with his patients; his technique was hilarious. I was repulsed by wife's deformed womb; it was icky and realistic. I guess Cronenberg like those sorts of slimey things in his movies. It was a great disturbing little movie. If they had upped the number of muto-kid attacks and improved the musical score, it could've been a huge classic.

• Ryan M

  
  5.0/10 "The Brood" is a completely exploitative film which tries ever-so-hardly to disguise itself, conveniently, as a REAL horror film. The film is directed by David Cronenberg, who directed "Videodrome" and "The Fly". You'll wish it were… More
  5.0/10 "The Brood" is a completely exploitative film which tries ever-so-hardly to disguise itself, conveniently, as a REAL horror film. The film is directed by David Cronenberg, who directed "Videodrome" and "The Fly". You'll wish it were better; you'll wish it were worse. But all-in-all, there's a chance that you'll finish "The Brood" feeling as if Cronenberg simply winged it. Yes, there are some typically interesting Cronenberg-esque suspense moments, but the uneven pacing and lack of any real ACTION throughout the film doesn't so much as make up for that. The film wants to be disgusting without being the equivalent of a sleazy Grindhouse flick, and therefore it does its job. I will admit that there are things to like here, but the bad overdoes the good in so many ways. It's disappointing, really; and that's coming from someone who respects Cronenberg as well as just about anything the legendary master of suspense has done. I mean, I love "Videodrome" and "The Fly" as much as the next guy. However, unlike the next guy, I do not like "The Brood". Murderous Children are getting to be some pretty darn tiresome horror villains, but throw in some bodily mutations, and apparently your movie is loads of fun. The story concerns a man named Frank, whose former wife is in the loony bin, while his daughter is experiencing all sorts of problems. He's having a troublingly strange psychiatrist help his wife recover, and in the process, our main man tries to gain access to these procedures so that he can help his wife himself. However, the murderous, mutated children (whom I mentioned earlier) get in the way of his investigations, and soon he's trying to find out who their mother is. She can't be too nice, or too caring, I'd presume. What Cronenberg wants to do here is this: he wants to build a film that spans about an hour and twenty minutes; in which not much happens. And then, he has another film which is about ten minutes long; in which a lot more happens. The last ten minutes of "The Brood" are exciting, well-directed, and as gruesome as they want to be. The finale scene isn't disturbing, per se, but it sure was effective. I can admire what Cronenberg has done here, stylistically, but "The Brood" just isn't that special. It doesn't have absorbing characters, all of whom are played by less-than-interesting or compelling actors, nor does it have good story-telling devices. It will work well for some, and it will not for others. I was ready to like this movie, I really was. But I never could have expected a man such as Cronenberg to produce- no, DIRECT- such a tedious bore. This is a decent film all-in-all, but it has much more craft and potential than it cares to use. The film is good stylistically. There's some good camera-work involved, but what really sets the "mood" for "The Brood" is Howard Shore's fairly-solid musical score; which is often creepy and therefore, often effective. Yes, Shore has done more memorable scores, which are often attached to more memorable movies, but that's far from a "complaint". The make-up effects in this film feel like the kind that Cronenberg is used to using; revolting, whimsical, and nigh surreal. I liked how this film presented itself visually, and I have no problem with this film's violence. It's not disturbing to me, and it won't be disturbing to most people (not now, at least). However, I think it was meant to be misunderstood. Or perhaps it is not misunderstood at all. People have the right to dislike, or even detest this film. I don't hate, mind, or "detest" this horror-thriller, but it doesn't have its heart in the right place. It's a win-win situation; you go for gore and thrills, you'll get some. But "some" is not the same as "a lot", and "The Brood" needs more of the goods if it's going to keep me entertained. It needs characters; it needs story-telling; and most of all, it needs a POINT. But it's good to see that Cronenberg got his act together some years later when he made "Videdrome", "The Fly", and "The Dead Zone". He is a good filmmaker; but here, he has not made a good film. This film is not deserving of his talent in horror, thrills, and suspense. But it is worthy of his fascinating for all things visually grotesque. That I'll grant it.

• Marcus W

  
  This film creeps and chills the way Shyamalan's early work used to. It also avoids "Childs Play Syndrome". A very decent little horror film. To say more is to ruin it.

• Patrick D

  
  Eff. Easily one of the scariest and definitely THE most cringe inducing killer kid film ever. I mean it's Cronenberg, right, so what do you expect, BUT even with the expectations, you won't see it coming. Oh but there is alot more going on than just killer kids, of course.… More
  Eff. Easily one of the scariest and definitely THE most cringe inducing killer kid film ever. I mean it's Cronenberg, right, so what do you expect, BUT even with the expectations, you won't see it coming. Oh but there is alot more going on than just killer kids, of course. And Oliver Reed is great in it, this is the first aged role I've seen him in and he's come a long way from a werewolf for Hammer. The opening scene with him is ridiculously intense.

• John M

  
  There are some grotesque scenes that are notable, and the idea of the film is interesting. A great plot, but a little slow.

• Eduardo C

  
  David Cronenberg films are always works of art that invariably end up accused of being sleazy exploitation. This one is no exception. However, this is the first Cronenberg film I can remember that was so markedly flawed, had such crippling miscalculations. This can be attributed to… More
  David Cronenberg films are always works of art that invariably end up accused of being sleazy exploitation. This one is no exception. However, this is the first Cronenberg film I can remember that was so markedly flawed, had such crippling miscalculations. This can be attributed to the fact it is one of his earlier films, but the direction is as strong as ever. I imagine this is one of the earliest scripts he wrote, and one he may not have revised with the best of eyes, as it is here where most of the film's flaws lie. It is very well photographed and directed, but it has serious pacing problems. There is a bit too much exposition (very strange, for a Cronenberg film) and the film's structure seems at odds with itself. Its attempts to set this film in the real world (police invervention, autopsy) grind it to a screeching hault because their reactions are not concurrent with what is happening. They seem to be there to tell, so Cronenberg (budget problems?) doesn't have to show. The score is annoying (save for the final piece, which is very good and highlights perfectly without intruding), and if we add to this a weak performance by Art Hindle as the lead and a surprisingly clunky first kill and we are already not looking at a masterpiece. But then...the last 15 minutes, while stagey, are pure Cronenberg. Oliver Reed delivers a great turn (as if he doesn't always) as the manliest psychiatrist in the history of cinema and some of the film's running themes are made clearer. The ending is surprisingly moving for a film that is so cold, detatched, clinical. The final shot is a heartbreaker. The film clearly has script issues, but it is very intelligent and certainly has a message. A lot of it feels ahead of its time, but so much of it feels exactly OF its time, or even dated by the time it was released. It is a 'good' film, more smart than it is good, but looking back it almost feels like a lost opportunity. The film's premise is ingenious, vintage Cronenberg, but the execution leaves much to be desired.

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