We all know the critical line on Cronenberg by now: "Body in revolt against itself", "From the disease's POV", "Sex=Horror", blah blah blah. Although this theme is present in The Brood (in spades), it's not what's interesting about the film. (The Fly, from 1986, was probably the last hurrah for this theme anyway. If Cronenberg is past this, and the piss-take that is eXistenZ suggests he is, then maybe we should be as well.) What comes through, 25 years later, is the depiction of divorce as an intensely painful death spiral.
Reportedly, Cronenberg was going through a divorce when writing The Brood, and it shows. The anger and despair from Frank Carveth’s divorce is palpable, so much so that when the monsters come out, it’s less like an invasion into normal reality than the period at the end of a sentence. Yet, what makes this film so good is that the people at the center of this darkness (Frank's wife Nola, her parents Juliana and Barton) never seem like villains, just very weak and human. Even Dr. Raglan, the “cause” of the horror in the classic mad scientist mode, is sympathetic by the end. And the film is filled with little human touches that make the horror lurking under the bed even darker: Frank tucking his daughter into bed, watching over her, telling her everything will be okay; and Barton’s breakdown over his ex-wife’s death (unusually poignant for a horror film, but then, grief is rarely allowed to intrude in this genre). Hell, even the supreme gross-out at the end of the movie is based on tenderness.
I seem to be developing a new aesthetic towards horror movies. I'm finding myself more and more attracted to films that can splice together drama and horror without betraying either, unlike The Birds or a certain *cough* Project Greenlight script. The Brood is a perfect example of this ideal, where one could remove the horror element entirely from the story and it could still work, yet paradoxically, the horror element is intimately entwined with the drama.
(How does that work, you ask? Good question. I’m still puzzling over it myself. It has to do, I think, with the essential conflict of main character, Frank, and how that conflict -- he wants custody of his daughter -- is part of the drama side of the equation.)
The only weakness in The Brood is Raglan's therapy, which props up the equation's horror side. Frankly, it doesn't make a lick of sense. How exactly is it supposed to be helpful, moreso than, say, a punching bag? Send your thoughtful answers to Kza, c/o this blog, the Internet, USA.
Where we saw it: dvd | We deign to rate it: outta 100This makes a great double feature with Nicholas Roeg's DON'T LOOK NOW.
Posted by: Scott at March 9, 2004 07:14 PMEvery time I admit this, I feel like I'm violating a sacred tenet in the Cronenberg Fanboy Constitution... but I really just do not understand what people see in this film. The acting is indifferent, the concept is fairly weak, the pacing is awful and that speech Oliver Reed gets near the end stops the film dead. I also have to disagree re: the meshing of the different genre-related elements -- I thought the horror material felt completely inorganic.
I dunno, maybe I need to see it again.
Posted by: Steve at March 9, 2004 09:44 PM"Inorganic"! Heh, heh.
Actually, Steve, I think hating Videodrome would be violating the Cronenberg Fanboy Constitution :-)
Nah, I don't really expect more than a handful of people to agree with me on this one. I noticed that Matt over at film.sm.to didn't like The Brood either.
One thing, though: While I can understand people not liking Art Hindle as Frank, surely you can agree that Robert Silverman is awesome as Jan Hartog, the patient with the lymphoma? Eh? Eh? Nudge, nudge.
Posted by: Kza at March 9, 2004 10:13 PMScott: Because of this movie and Don't Look Now, I have a nigh-uncontrollable urge to take out any small people in red hooded coats with a metal baseball bat.
Posted by: Kza at March 10, 2004 11:41 AM