La clinique de la terreur

Although I have watched David Cronenberg's "The Brood" a number of times, I still find it unbelievably disturbing. From the beginning until the ending credits, it is unsettling horror at its morbid best.

Under the care of Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed), Nola Carveth (Samantha Eggar) is undergoing a radical and controversial form of psychiatric treatment called "Psychoplasmics". Psychoplasmics takes the role-playing of psychotherapy to a new level by training the patient to release his pent-up rage and physically expel that rage from his body. Sounds weird? That is only the beginning. Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is Nola's estranged husband who suspects his wife of physically abusing their daughter Candace. After vowing to protect his daughter legally, murders committed by strange deformed children begin to occur.

To say anymore would be to stifle The Brood's terror-ific mystique. However, I will suggest that you consider experiencing this film on an empty stomach with the lights on. After viewing, don't be surprised if you feel compelled to make amends with anyone you might currently be at odds with.

One of Cronenberg's best films! It has some moments that will stick with you for a while. When the brood first appears and the beatings begin, I was not only disturbed by them, but the way that their faces look was burned onto my brain. I once read that Cronenberg calls this film his KRAMER VS. KRAMER. I think that's very interesting. He's taken the pain that he went through in his own life and manifested it in the physical form of these creatures. I find this kind of creativity to be associated only with some of the more visionary contemporary filmmakers. Cronenberg is that, there is no question. Performances by the late great Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar and Art Hindle are perfect for the film. It is scary and disturbing and should be seen by all horror film fans. I find it to be a sadly neglected classic.

The Brood is undoubtedly the most personal movie Cronenberg ever made : we all know the film describes Cronenberg's vision of his own divorce (and the custody of his daughter Cassandra) ; at that time, his then-wife belonged to what he thought was a cult and he did kidnap his own daughter in order to protect her. Thus The Brood is full of rage, vengeance and death wish… It is a truly frightening story and, in its own way, a candid vision of one's personal tragedy. It seems to be a tale from the Grimm brothers, and, at the same time, a reflection on the powerful link between body and spirit. The script is surprisingly complex and rich, even if, in the end, there is definitely something childish in the movie, but in a positive way: the childish belief that "thoughts can kill" only tempered by the final sequence, when we understand that this little girl, so cruelly abused, will eventually reproduce what her mother developed. The image of this mother (Samantha Eggar at her best, revealing her tortured body that evokes a Roman goddess) is one of the most terrifying one in world cinema. The Brood is a key to understand one of the Cronenberg's major themes: the uncanny… How what is closest to us, family, mother, grandparents, might suddenly become the ultimate horror. What frightens us is not outlandish or alien, on the contrary, it's always part of our intimate universe (as in Videodrome).

I really enjoyed David Cronenberg's film called The Brood. It is about a woman who is being cared for by an eccentric psychologist called Dr. Raglan(Oliver Reed). Who uses theatrical techniques to breach the psychological blocks in his patients. When their six year old daughter comes back from a visit with her mother and is covered with bruises the father Frank Carveth attempts to stop his his wife from seeing their daughter. But the psychologist Dr. Raskin will not stop his wife from seeing the girl. whilst this is happening his daughter's teacher is is attacked by two strange looking deformed children. Her father starts to believe that it is to do with Dr. Rankin and a psychotherapy cult which he may have something to do with it. This film was quite disturbing at times. I thought that Oliver Reed played a very good part in the film.

David Cronenberg plainly still carried a lot of baggage about the opposite sex when he embarked on his final film of the seventies. Described as "ludicrous" by David Shipman and designated a 'BOMB!' by Leonard Martin, which makes it sound a lot more fun it actually proves to be. A large cast never really mesh as they just mill about and talk and talk before coming to gory ends committed by ugly little trolls in bright red anoraks. Oliver Reed somehow keeps a straight face as a seriously crazy psychiatrist while it's fun to hear Samantha Eggar talking like a little girl under the influence of regression therapy.