The Brood
Encyclopedia
The Brood is a 1979 Canadian
horror film
written and directed by David Cronenberg
, starring Oliver Reed
, Samantha Eggar
and Art Hindle
.
The film depicts a series of murders committed by what seems at first to be a group of children. These are in fact the psychosomatic offspring
of a mentally disturbed woman, whose husband fights for custody, and finally the life, of their daughter.
Frank leaves Candice with her grandmother Juliana, and the two spend the evening viewing old photographs; Juliana informs Candice that Nola was frequently hospitalized as a child, and often exhibited strange unexplained wheals on her skin that doctors were unable to diagnose. While returning to the kitchen, Juliana is attacked and bludgeoned to death by a small, dwarf-like child. Candice is traumatized, but otherwise unharmed. Juliana's estranged husband Barton returns for the funeral, and unsuccessfully attempts to contact Nola at Somafree, but Raglan turns him away. Frank takes his daughter's teacher Ruth Mayer home for dinner to discuss Candice, but Barton interrupts with a drunken phone call from Juliana's home, demanding that they both go to Somafree in force to see Nola; Frank leaves to console Barton, leaving Candice in Ruth's care. While he is away, Ruth accidentally answers a phone call from Nola, who, recognizing her voice, angrily warns her to stay away from her family.
Frank arrives to find Barton murdered by the same deformed dwarf-child, who dies attempting to kill him. The police autopsy reveals a multitude of bizarre anatomical anomalies: the creature is asexual
, completely color-blind, naturally toothless
, and devoid of a navel, indicating no known means of natural human birth. After the murder story reaches the newspapers, a concerned Raglan closes Somafree and purges his patients to municipal care. Frank is alerted by a former patient dying of psychoplasmic-induced lymphoma (presumably due to his self-hatred) of the closure, and enlists a disgruntled Somafree patient named Mike to find out the reasons why.
During the therapy sessions, Raglan discovers that Nola was physically and verbally abused by her self-pitying alcoholic mother, and neglected by her co-dependent alcoholic father, who refused to protect Nola out of shame and denial. Raglan reluctantly acknowledges that the murders coincide with the sessions relating to their respective topics (her mother first, her father second), and that now her anger seems directed at Ruth Mayer, whom she sees as a competitor. Raglan ventures out to a large shed on the property and is dismayed to discover a broken window. When Candice returns to school, two more dwarf children attack and kill Ruth in front of her class, and abscond with Candice on foot to Somafree. When Mike tells Frank that Nola is Raglan's prize subject and in charge of some "disturbed children" in a property workshed, Frank immediately ventures to Somafree. Frank angrily confronts Raglan, who tells him at gunpoint the truth about the dwarf children: they are the accidental product of Nola's psychoplasmic sessions; Nola's rage about her abuse was so strong that she parthenogenetically
birthed a brood of children who psychically respond and act on the targets of her rage with Nola completely unaware of their actions. Realizing The Brood are too dangerous to keep anymore, Raglan plots to venture into The Brood's quarters and rescue Candice, provided that Frank can keep Nola calm to avoid provoking the children.
Frank attempts a feigned rapprochement long enough for Raglan to collect Candice, but when he witnesses Nola give birth to another child through a pyschoplasmically-induced external womb, she notices his disgust and The Brood attacks Raglan; he manages to shoot several of them, but they eventually overwhelm him. Nola threatens to kill Candice rather than lose her, and The Brood go after her; she hides in a closet, but they begin to break through the door. In desperation, Frank chokes Nola to death, and The Brood die without their mother's psychic connection. He carries Candice back to his car and they drive off into the night, but it is hinted that the extreme violence she endured and the loss of her mother has given her Nola's ability: a pair of small wheals are seen growing on her arm. The film cuts to credits, leaving their fate unknown.
and Mississauga, Ontario
, on a budget of C$
1,500,000. It was a financial success, and executive producer Victor Solnicki (who also produced Cronenberg's Scanners
and Videodrome
) called it his favourite Cronenberg picture. Cronenberg called it the most classic horror film he did, and, together with The Fly
and Dead Ringers
, one of his most autobiographical. At the time The Brood was developed, Cronenberg fought for custody of his daughter from his first marriage.
This was the first Cronenberg film to be scored by Howard Shore
, and is also Shore's first film score. He has written the music for all but one of Cronenberg's subsequent films.
The Brood had cuts demanded for its theatrical release in the US
, Canada and Great Britain
. Cronenberg condemned the censorship
of the climactic scene, in which Eggar's character gives birth to one of the monsters and starts tenderly licking it clean: "I had a long and loving close-up of Samantha licking the fetus […] when the censors, those animals, cut it out, the result was that a lot of people thought she was eating her baby. That's much worse than I was suggesting." The US MGM DVD
and UK Anchor Bay
DVD feature the uncensored version, while most other releases feature the shorter version.
The Brood was listed #88 on the "Chicago Film Critics Association's
100 Scariest Movies of All-Time". In 2004, one of its sequences was voted #78 among the "100 Scariest Movie Moments
" by the Bravo Channel.
In 2009, Spyglass Entertainment
announced a remake from a script by Cory Goodman, to be directed by Breck Eisner
. Eisner left the project in 2010.
called it "an extremely well made, if essentially unpleasant shocker", Leonard Maltin
rated it an outright "bomb". Roger Ebert
called it "a bore" and "disgusting in ways that are not entertaining", and even went as far as asking, "Are there really people who want to see reprehensible trash like this?"
In Cult Movies, Danny Peary
, who openly disapproves of Shivers
and Rabid
, calls The Brood "Cronenberg's best film" because "we care about the characters", and, although he dislikes the ending, "an hour and a half of absorbing, solid cinema".
In his An Introduction to the American Horror Film, critic Robin Wood
views The Brood as a reactionary work portraying feminine power as irrational and horrifying, and the dangerous attempts of Oliver Reed's character's psychoanalysis as an analogue to the dangers of trying to undo repression in society. In Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting, W. Scott Poole argues that a number of horror films produced in the 1970s and 1980s mirrored the conservative critiques of women's liberation movements and the somewhat uncomfortable anxiety over women's control over their bodies and reproduction, including Alien
and It's Alive.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
written and directed by David Cronenberg
David Cronenberg
David Paul Cronenberg, OC, FRSC is a Canadian filmmaker, screenwriter and actor. He is one of the principal originators of what is commonly known as the body horror or venereal horror genre. This style of filmmaking explores people's fears of bodily transformation and infection. In his films, the...
, starring Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed
Oliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
, Samantha Eggar
Samantha Eggar
Samantha Eggar is an English film, television and voice actress.-Early life:She was born Victoria Louise Samantha Marie Elizabeth Therese Eggar in Hampstead, London to an Anglo-Irish father and a mother of Dutch and Portuguese descent...
and Art Hindle
Art Hindle
Arthur Hindle is a Canadian actor and director.Hindle was born in Halifax. His family moved to Toronto while he was a child. Although shy as a youngster, he grew to be a rebellious and independent teenager...
.
The film depicts a series of murders committed by what seems at first to be a group of children. These are in fact the psychosomatic offspring
Offspring
In biology, offspring is the product of reproduction, of a new organism produced by one or more parents.Collective offspring may be known as a brood or progeny in a more general way...
of a mentally disturbed woman, whose husband fights for custody, and finally the life, of their daughter.
Plot
Unconventional psychotherapist Hal Raglan of the Somafree Institute has created a technique called "psychoplasmics," where patients' traumatic memories provoke physiological changes to their bodies according to the nature of their emotions. One of his patients is Nola Carveth, a severely disturbed woman who is legally embattled with her husband Frank for custody of their six year-old daughter Candice. When Frank discovers bruises and scratches on Candice following a visit with Nola, Frank accosts Raglan, and informs him of his intent to stop visitation rights. Eager to protect his patient, but fearful of the accusations, Raglan begins to intensify the sessions with Nola to resolve the issue quickly.Frank leaves Candice with her grandmother Juliana, and the two spend the evening viewing old photographs; Juliana informs Candice that Nola was frequently hospitalized as a child, and often exhibited strange unexplained wheals on her skin that doctors were unable to diagnose. While returning to the kitchen, Juliana is attacked and bludgeoned to death by a small, dwarf-like child. Candice is traumatized, but otherwise unharmed. Juliana's estranged husband Barton returns for the funeral, and unsuccessfully attempts to contact Nola at Somafree, but Raglan turns him away. Frank takes his daughter's teacher Ruth Mayer home for dinner to discuss Candice, but Barton interrupts with a drunken phone call from Juliana's home, demanding that they both go to Somafree in force to see Nola; Frank leaves to console Barton, leaving Candice in Ruth's care. While he is away, Ruth accidentally answers a phone call from Nola, who, recognizing her voice, angrily warns her to stay away from her family.
Frank arrives to find Barton murdered by the same deformed dwarf-child, who dies attempting to kill him. The police autopsy reveals a multitude of bizarre anatomical anomalies: the creature is asexual
Asexual reproduction
Asexual reproduction is a mode of reproduction by which offspring arise from a single parent, and inherit the genes of that parent only, it is reproduction which does not involve meiosis, ploidy reduction, or fertilization. A more stringent definition is agamogenesis which is reproduction without...
, completely color-blind, naturally toothless
Edentulism
Edentulism is the condition of being toothless to at least some degree; it is the result of tooth loss. Loss of some teeth results in partial edentulism, while loss of all teeth results in complete edentulism....
, and devoid of a navel, indicating no known means of natural human birth. After the murder story reaches the newspapers, a concerned Raglan closes Somafree and purges his patients to municipal care. Frank is alerted by a former patient dying of psychoplasmic-induced lymphoma (presumably due to his self-hatred) of the closure, and enlists a disgruntled Somafree patient named Mike to find out the reasons why.
During the therapy sessions, Raglan discovers that Nola was physically and verbally abused by her self-pitying alcoholic mother, and neglected by her co-dependent alcoholic father, who refused to protect Nola out of shame and denial. Raglan reluctantly acknowledges that the murders coincide with the sessions relating to their respective topics (her mother first, her father second), and that now her anger seems directed at Ruth Mayer, whom she sees as a competitor. Raglan ventures out to a large shed on the property and is dismayed to discover a broken window. When Candice returns to school, two more dwarf children attack and kill Ruth in front of her class, and abscond with Candice on foot to Somafree. When Mike tells Frank that Nola is Raglan's prize subject and in charge of some "disturbed children" in a property workshed, Frank immediately ventures to Somafree. Frank angrily confronts Raglan, who tells him at gunpoint the truth about the dwarf children: they are the accidental product of Nola's psychoplasmic sessions; Nola's rage about her abuse was so strong that she parthenogenetically
Parthenogenesis
Parthenogenesis is a form of asexual reproduction found in females, where growth and development of embryos occur without fertilization by a male...
birthed a brood of children who psychically respond and act on the targets of her rage with Nola completely unaware of their actions. Realizing The Brood are too dangerous to keep anymore, Raglan plots to venture into The Brood's quarters and rescue Candice, provided that Frank can keep Nola calm to avoid provoking the children.
Frank attempts a feigned rapprochement long enough for Raglan to collect Candice, but when he witnesses Nola give birth to another child through a pyschoplasmically-induced external womb, she notices his disgust and The Brood attacks Raglan; he manages to shoot several of them, but they eventually overwhelm him. Nola threatens to kill Candice rather than lose her, and The Brood go after her; she hides in a closet, but they begin to break through the door. In desperation, Frank chokes Nola to death, and The Brood die without their mother's psychic connection. He carries Candice back to his car and they drive off into the night, but it is hinted that the extreme violence she endured and the loss of her mother has given her Nola's ability: a pair of small wheals are seen growing on her arm. The film cuts to credits, leaving their fate unknown.
Cast
- Oliver ReedOliver ReedOliver Reed was an English actor known for his burly screen presence. Reed exemplified his real-life macho image in "tough guy" roles...
– Dr. Hal Raglan - Samantha EggarSamantha EggarSamantha Eggar is an English film, television and voice actress.-Early life:She was born Victoria Louise Samantha Marie Elizabeth Therese Eggar in Hampstead, London to an Anglo-Irish father and a mother of Dutch and Portuguese descent...
– Nola Carveth - Art HindleArt HindleArthur Hindle is a Canadian actor and director.Hindle was born in Halifax. His family moved to Toronto while he was a child. Although shy as a youngster, he grew to be a rebellious and independent teenager...
– Frank Carveth - Nuala Fitzgerald – Juliana Kelly
- Susan HoganSusan HoganSusan Hogan may refer to:*Susan Hogan , Canadian actress*Susan Hogan , Scottish cultural historian, academic and author...
– Ruth Mayer - Gary McKeehan – Mike Trellan
- Cindy Hinds – Candice Carveth
- Harry Beckman – Barton Kelly
- Michael MageeMichael MageeMichael Magee was a Canadian actor and author. He was known for voicing the antagonist Cyril Sneer and his pet dog Snag in the Canadian animated series The Raccoons....
– Inspector - Robert A. SilvermanRobert A. SilvermanRobert A. Silverman was born on February 24, 1943 in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Robert is one of several actors often cast by writer/director David Cronenberg. Silverman is sometimes credited as Bob Silverman or Robert Silverman. He has appeared in 5 films directed by David Cronenberg...
– Jan Hartog
Background info
The Brood was filmed in TorontoToronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
and Mississauga, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, on a budget of C$
Canadian dollar
The Canadian dollar is the currency of Canada. As of 2007, the Canadian dollar is the 7th most traded currency in the world. It is abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or C$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
1,500,000. It was a financial success, and executive producer Victor Solnicki (who also produced Cronenberg's Scanners
Scanners
Scanners is a 1981 science-fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Jennifer O'Neill, Stephen Lack, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan...
and Videodrome
Videodrome
Videodrome is a 1983 Canadian science fiction body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg, starring James Woods, Sonja Smits, and singer Deborah Harry. Set in Toronto during the early 1980s, it follows the CEO of a small cable station who stumbles upon a broadcast signal featuring...
) called it his favourite Cronenberg picture. Cronenberg called it the most classic horror film he did, and, together with The Fly
The Fly (1986 film)
The Fly is a 1986 science fiction horror film co-written and directed by David Cronenberg. Produced by 20th Century Fox, and Brooksfilms, the film stars Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis and John Getz. It is a remake of the 1958 film of the same name, but retains only the basic premise of a scientist...
and Dead Ringers
Dead Ringers (film)
Dead Ringers is a 1988 psychological horror film starring Jeremy Irons in a dual role as identical twin gynecologists. Director David Cronenberg co-wrote the screenplay with Norman Snider; their script was based on the novel Twins by Bari Wood and Jack Geasland...
, one of his most autobiographical. At the time The Brood was developed, Cronenberg fought for custody of his daughter from his first marriage.
This was the first Cronenberg film to be scored by Howard Shore
Howard Shore
Howard Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer, notable for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he won three Academy Awards. He is also a consistent collaborator with director David Cronenberg,...
, and is also Shore's first film score. He has written the music for all but one of Cronenberg's subsequent films.
The Brood had cuts demanded for its theatrical release in the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, Canada and Great Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Cronenberg condemned the censorship
Censorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
of the climactic scene, in which Eggar's character gives birth to one of the monsters and starts tenderly licking it clean: "I had a long and loving close-up of Samantha licking the fetus […] when the censors, those animals, cut it out, the result was that a lot of people thought she was eating her baby. That's much worse than I was suggesting." The US MGM DVD
DVD
A DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
and UK Anchor Bay
Anchor Bay Entertainment
Anchor Bay Entertainment is a U.S. based home entertainment and production company and is a division of Starz Media, which is a unit of Starz, LLC. It was previously owned by IDT Entertainment until 2006 when IDT was purchased by Starz Media. Anchor Bay markets and sells feature films, series,...
DVD feature the uncensored version, while most other releases feature the shorter version.
The Brood was listed #88 on the "Chicago Film Critics Association's
Chicago Film Critics Association
The Chicago Film Critics Association is an American film critic association.-Members:Current members include:*Sarah Knight Adamson*Zbigniew Banas*Shelley Cameron*Dave Canfield*Vittorio Carli*Erik Childress*Camerin Courtney*Bonnie DeShong...
100 Scariest Movies of All-Time". In 2004, one of its sequences was voted #78 among the "100 Scariest Movie Moments
100 Scariest Movie Moments
The 100 Scariest Movie Moments is a television documentary miniseries that first aired in late October 2004 on Bravo. Aired in five 60-minute segments, the miniseries counts down what producer Anthony Timpone, writer Patrick Moses, and director Kevin Kaufman have determined as the 100 most...
" by the Bravo Channel.
In 2009, Spyglass Entertainment
Spyglass Entertainment
Spyglass Entertainment is an American film production company, co-founded by Gary Barber and Roger Birnbaum in 1998. The studio was founded with an investment from European media conglomerates Kirch Group and Mediaset, and a five-year distribution deal with The Walt Disney Company...
announced a remake from a script by Cory Goodman, to be directed by Breck Eisner
Breck Eisner
Michael "Breck" Eisner is an American television and film director.-Early life:Eisner was born Michael Eisner in California, the son of Jane Breckenridge, a business advisor and computer programmer, and Michael Eisner, the former Walt Disney Company chief executive...
. Eisner left the project in 2010.
Criticism
Reviews of The Brood were mixed. While VarietyVariety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
called it "an extremely well made, if essentially unpleasant shocker", Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin is an American film and animated film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.-Personal life:...
rated it an outright "bomb". Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
called it "a bore" and "disgusting in ways that are not entertaining", and even went as far as asking, "Are there really people who want to see reprehensible trash like this?"
In Cult Movies, Danny Peary
Danny Peary
Danny Peary is an American film critic and sports writer. He has written many books on cinema and sports-related topics.-Biography:...
, who openly disapproves of Shivers
Shivers (film)
Shivers is a 1975 Canadian body horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. Cronenberg won "Best Director" at the 1975 Sitges Film Festival.-Plot:Dr...
and Rabid
Rabid
Rabid is a 1977 horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg. It features Marilyn Chambers in the lead role, supported by Frank Moore, Howard Ryshpan, Joe Silver and Robert A...
, calls The Brood "Cronenberg's best film" because "we care about the characters", and, although he dislikes the ending, "an hour and a half of absorbing, solid cinema".
In his An Introduction to the American Horror Film, critic Robin Wood
Robin Wood (critic)
Robert Paul "Robin" Wood was a Canada-based film critic and educator. He wrote books on Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Ingmar Bergman, and Arthur Penn and was a member, until 2007, of the editorial collective that publishes the magazine CineACTION!, a film theory collective founded by Wood and...
views The Brood as a reactionary work portraying feminine power as irrational and horrifying, and the dangerous attempts of Oliver Reed's character's psychoanalysis as an analogue to the dangers of trying to undo repression in society. In Monsters in America: Our Historical Obsession with the Hideous and the Haunting, W. Scott Poole argues that a number of horror films produced in the 1970s and 1980s mirrored the conservative critiques of women's liberation movements and the somewhat uncomfortable anxiety over women's control over their bodies and reproduction, including Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
and It's Alive.