- The Brood
:"This article is about the 1979 film. For the
Professional wrestling stable seeThe Brood (professional wrestling) . For the Venice Beach crossover-thrash band see The Brood. For the Marvel Comic villains, see The Brood"Infobox_Film
name = The Brood
writer =David Cronenberg
starring =Oliver Reed
Samantha Eggar
Art Hindle
Harry Beckman
director =David Cronenberg
producer = Claude Heroux
editing = Alan Collins
distributor =New World Pictures
released =1979
runtime = 92 min.
language = English
budget = C$1,400,000 (est.) | music =Howard Shore
amg_id = 1:7238
imdb_id = 0078908"The Brood" is a 1979 Canadian
horror film written and directed byDavid Cronenberg , starringOliver Reed ,Samantha Eggar andArt Hindle . It was filmed inToronto andMississauga ,Ontario . In 2004, one of its sequences was voted #78 among the "100 Scariest Movie Moments " by the Bravo Channel. [cite web|url=http://www.bravotv.com/The_100_Scariest_Movie_Moments//index.shtml|title=The 100 Scariest Movie Moments|accessdate=2006-06-29|first=|last=|publisher=BravoTV.com] [cite web | work=imdb.com | title=Trivia for "The 100 Scariest Movie Moments" |url=http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450892/trivia| accessdate=2006-09-03]A novelization was written by Richard Starks.
Plot
An unconventional psychotherapist (
Oliver Reed ) has created a technique called "psychoplasmics." He encourages his patients to "go all the way through it" and allow their negative emotions (rage, fear, etc.) to cause their bodies to undergo (usually radical) physical change. A man verbally abused by his father developswelts over his body as a way of expressing his pain. Another patient developslymphatic cancer , supposedly a manifestation of his self-hatred.In the case of the principal characters, it causes a woman (
Samantha Eggar ) to parthenogenetically birth strange, mutated children and, via a telepathic bond, have them act out whatever negative emotions the mother is feeling at the time, with disastrous consequences when her therapist brings those emotions to the surface. In the film's climax, Samantha Eggar's character is killed when a rescue attempt of her daughter fails, causing the titular Brood to attack Candice, and then die after their mother dies. Candice father takes her away, but it is hinted that, due to the extreme violence she witnessed and the loss of her mother, she has gained her mother's ability, as shown by two odd welts growing on her. The film then cuts to credits, leaving Candice and her father's fate unknown.Production
In interviews, Cronenberg has said that this film was partially inspired by a painful custody battle with his ex-wife for their daughter Cassandra (who has since worked as an assistant director on several films, including her father's "
eXistenZ "). Cronenberg has also condemned thecensorship of the climactic scene in which Eggar's character gives birth to one of the monsters and starts tenderly licking it clean. This scene was "trimmed" in theUnited Kingdom , ironically causing many viewers to assume the character was eating her babyFact|date=February 2007. In 2005, the full uncut version was made available on UK DVD."The Brood" was the first Cronenberg film to be scored by
Howard Shore , who has written the music for all Cronenberg's subsequent works except "The Dead Zone".References
External links
* [http://seul-le-cinema.blogspot.com/2007/12/1213-brood.html Review by Ed Howard at Only The Cinema]
* [http://filmreferencelibrary.ca/index.asp?layid=44&csid1=242&navid=87&fid3=555&offset=40 Canadian Film Encyclopedia] [A publication of The Film Reference Library/a division of the Toronto International Film Festival Group]* [http://www.cinetudes.com/THE-BROOD-by-David-Cronenberg-Part-1-1979_a142.html Study on Cinetudes]
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