In 1979 David Cronenberg released a horror onto our cinema screens and our unconscious that would make you shiver for a long time afterwards. This was a huge leap from the unsavoury delights he had shown us up to that point. This was not in the same vein as the surreal sci-fi shorts of ‘Crimes of the Future’ and ‘Stereo’ , or the sexual frenzy of the exploitation flicks of ‘Shivers’ or ‘Rabid’ , or the car drama shenanigans of ‘Fast Company’ , this was to be something far deeper and more personal and for all that, it was to be Cronenberg’s darkest and most disturbing hour to date.
At this time Cronenberg, in his personal life, was going through a divorce and a custody battle with his wife over their daughter, these themes would form what was to become ‘The Brood’ .
‘The Brood’ starred Art Hindle as Frank Carveth, a father going through the motions of his life with his wife fighting through her breakdown. His small fair-haired daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds), still visits his wife at the weekends, who is in some kind of lock down therapy. One day she returns home somewhat battered and bruised. The little girl cannot explain why the marks and scratches are there, but it must have happened in the company of his wife.
Time to confront her about the safety of their child but her doctor, Dr Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), has decreed this would be detrimental to her therapy. It seems that Nola (Samantha Eggar) is not to be disturbed.
What is going on is far more sinister, and during the therapy sessions with Raglan, long forgotten hatred and fears are awoken and unbeknown to her, her parents are brutally murdered by small child-like figures. It is also possible that Candice has witnessed the murder of her Grandmother, although again, she has not said anything about it. Who are these small vicious killers ?
Carveth is scared for his daughter’s safety and starts investigating what is happening at the Institute. There seems to be some connection with the experimental forms of therapy and the evasive Dr Raglan with the deaths of Nola’s parents. But that does not explain who and what the killers are, one such killer is cornered and dies in front of Carveth and this little disfigured humanoid is far from normal.
To go into the plot in any more detail would spoil the effect for those novice viewers, suffice to say that Cronenberg borrows his themes from his personal life and reworks in elements of ‘Forbidden Planet’ and touches of the sinister ‘Don’t Look Now’ . It seems rage has a face, and it has never been so obscene and surreally beautiful.
Sadly just being a young pup I never caught this on it’s initial cinema outing, Cronenberg did not make it into the mainstream until his next feature, 'Scanners' (see review ), and the delights of ‘The Brood’ were savoured when I caught it on VHS on an old Intervision label. It had me hooked then and has me hooked now. Anchor Bay has released 2 wonderful widescreen prints in one package, on the UK version (running 86 mins approx) this is very sharp transfer indeed, with only a small touch of graininess in some of the later scenes, the sound is in optional 2.0 channel, 5.1 and the DTS is fantastic, this is much better than the previously released Arrow version. On the US version (running 92 mins approx) we get to see much more than what we have done previously in this country. The print is not as sharp as the UK one and the only sound option is the Stereo 2.0 channel, but this is gruesome hardcore stuff indeed !
For extra content we have the excellent American Film Institute's "The Directors" series, profiling his career up to ‘eXistenZ’ and featuring interviews with Cronenberg and many of the actors who have worked with him, including Holly Hunter, Michael Ironside, Peter Weller, Deborah Harry, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Willem Dafoe. This documentary has never been available before in the UK, but for those in the US, it is available on it’s own. Here, it is more than a worthy addition to this package’s content. A few trailers for ‘The Brood’ and ‘Scanners 1, 2 & 3’ are also included as well as some text biogs and film notes.
In short, buy it !
'The Brood' is available in the UK via AmazonUK , and as of yet no US release date has been given. database .
USA
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