The Brood
March 9, 2007
"The Brood," directed by David Cronenberg
1979
A stark, creepy Freudian horror film about repression and violence. Who but David Cronenberg could have possibly directed it? Written while the director was going through a painful divorce and custody battle, the film concerns a husband and wife who are separated while the wife attends an experimental psychotherapy clinic. After finding his daughter bruised and scratched after picking her up from a visit with her mother, the father bars further visits. Suddenly strange, childlike creatures start attacking those the mother thinks have wronged her. Directed with little flourish but plenty of atmosphere, the film is one of the best looking of Cronenberg's first trilogy of films (it followed the raw-and-gritty "Shiver" and the twisted "Rabid"). Forgoing his usual psychosexual concerns for more immediate emotional issues, Cronenberg does that rare thing in creating a horror film of ideas, showing repressed anger leading to violence, followed by imagined victimization to justify the immoralities committed. Beautiful stuff.
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