The Brood

What Canadian David Cronenberg makes aren’t simply films, but well-reasoned essays fit for submission as doctoral theses. With “Brood”, you get the feeling you’re watching a professor prove his pet hypothesis: through a series of impeccable premises backed up with an iron-clad narrative, the director meticulously brings his pessimistic conception of man, and society in general, to its ultimate conclusion.

Freed from the echoes of the work of George A. Romero, which had influenced his prior diptych (“Shivers” in 1975 and “Rabid” in 1977), Cronenberg makes an extremely personal film in which he holds up a magnifying glass to his own anxieties and phobias. Among those dark perturbations, we would cite:

1. an obsession with mutation/cellular degeneration (in particular, we encounter lines such as “Raglan encouraged my body to revolt against me. And it did. I have a small revolution on my hands and I’m not putting it down very successfully” or, “Some days, she [Mommy] would wake up and she would be covered with big, ugly bumps. And the doctors were very worried, because they could never find out what those bumps all over her skin really were“;
2. horror related to procreation (which will return more graphically than ever in the upcoming “The Fly” and “Dead Ringers“);
3. the indelible mind-body link;
4. apprehensions regarding the irresponsible use of scientific knowledge.

Steeped in references to psychodynamics and psychoanalysis (the doctor’s words here illustrate that point: “My concern is that the child could have a very serious breakdown if she doesn’t come to terms with what she’s experienced“), the basic plot remains one of a classic tragedy, characterized by a theatrical-style approach which emerges in a striking way with the extraordinary depiction of Dr. Raglan’s therapeutic sessions (similar in many ways to pyschiatrist Jacob Moreno’s “psychodrama” method).

The film can also be appreciated from a technical-figurative point of view: the trusty Howard Shore’s fitting music, Mark Irwin’s noteworthy dirty photography (the ingenious use of color – warm tones for interiors versus cold tones for exteriors – transforms the Somafree Institute into a suffocating womb), adequately disgusting practical SFX.

The cast is in sensational form: Oliver Reed in the role of the ambiguous psychiatrist offers further evidence of his acting prowess. Samantha Eggar, more insane and hyperactive than ever, splendidly manages a role that’s anything but easy. Special mention for little Cindy Hinds’s “monstrous” performance.

Although some critics still haven’t gotten on board, this film is an absolute masterpiece in the history of the Seventh Art.