I feel as though I should hate The
Brood for being both sexist and ableist. But as with most of
David Cronenberg’s work though, (with the exception of The Fly),
I honestly can’t bring myself to care. The story never interests
me. It’s like hearing a college freshman trying to tell The
Aristocrats; you know that he’s just saying it to shock you. It
has no connection to the real world on any literal or metaphorical
level, so why should you care?
The movie actually starts out decently.
A man named Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is forced by his custody
agreement to take his daughter Candice (Cindy Hinds) for visits to
her mother Nola (Samantha Eggar) who’s in an experimental
psychiatric clinic run by Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed). We’re
initially set up for the story of a custody battle. Juliana is
coming home with scratches, and Frank believes that either Nola or
the other patients are hurting her, so he wants to take away her
visitation rights. However, if he doesn’t comply for the time
being, then Nola could gain sole custody of their daughter.
This story could have been good. Frank
is established as clearly being the more caring parent, subverting
gender expectations. Nola is clearly shown as wanting to be a good
mother, but not being able to handle her own mental illness. I’m
never entirely sure what to think of Dr. Raglan, but that’s
probably a good thing. It’s never clear if he’s actually
treating his patients, or simply getting them hooked on his
particular brand of therapy in order to better manipulate them.
Then, the actual plot starts. Nola’s
mother (Nuala Fitzgerald), and later her father (Harry Beckman), are
attacked by grey, deformed children. We eventually find out that Dr.
Raglan has been experimenting with a form of psychotherapy that
causes psychological illnesses to physically manifest in the form of
things like rashes and boils. With Nola, it has gone a step further,
and these children are born from her body as manifestations of her
rage who attack anyone with whom she’s angry.
I’m pretty much giving away the
ending at this point, but I feel even less shame about that than
usual, as nothing remotely interesting happens during the rest of the
film. There’s a long stretch between the death of Nola’s mother
and the death of her father. In the meantime, we get a lot of scenes
of talking and very little action. Frank wants more information on
Dr. Raglan that he can use in court against Nola, and everyone is sad
about the death of Nola’s mother. Even Frank had a good
relationship with her, but it never feels like it’s going anywhere.
The story would probably be more interesting if it were shown from
Nola’s perspective, but most of our time is spent with Frank.
I should also note that there’s
nothing remotely interesting about the visual style of this film. If
there had been, then this might have saved it. But the color palate
is dull and the babies are clearly just midgets or children in grey
masks. I would have vastly preferred Claymation to give them an
otherworldly quality. Granted, Cronenberg likely had a low budget,
but surely he could have found something more interesting than
“small, grey people.”
I don’t recommend this movie.
There’s nothing about it worth seeing.
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