Perfect cast and a good story

Brilliant and touching

Best movie ever!

A Disappointing Continuation

There's not much story. The killings are creepy though. It's about this ex-husband who wants custody of his five year old daughter from his deranged ex-wife in a psychiatric hospital. In the meantime, dwarves attack the townspeople. It does explain where they came from which doesn't make sense, but I thought the dwarves were the best part.

David Cronenberg directs "The Brood" an interesting and original horror movie starring Art Hindle. Giving it the benefit of the doubt for its age, the movie is a good watch. Make-up and some of the horror is obviously not up to do todays standards, but the acting is passable, and especially good from Oliver Reed, playing a cool, calm, and collected doctor. The suspense is satisfactory, while the violence is somewhat perfunctory and far-fetched especially when considering the brood explanations. The story didn't really get into origins of the brood enough although it hints at the so-called therapy as related. The music was a bit dramatic and overcooked, but the settings were well chosen. Give it 6/10 for originality, and interesting for the genre.

"Long live the new flesh!" – the very remarkable sentence from "Videodrome" by James Woods in that moment seemed belated as David Cronenberg already made strong statement with body horrors like "Shivers", "Rabid", and "The Brood". Having previous experience with Cronenberg's work, "The Brood" is not different from his earlier works – it is also filled with externalizations of unconscious into some organic forms, creatures or non-human living organisms.It's very much a film of its time. It's slow paced, characters are weak and inconvincible, I felt no true horror in the story and setting, except the perversion of motherhood and presence of "mad scientist" (and even Oliver Reed couldn't make Dr. Raglan mad enough) who was "playing with the brains of his patients". Even with all that being said, I really respect Cronenberg's directing as he succeeded in creating detached sense of reality – throughout whole movie you will be suck in the "plot" like there exist nothing else in this world – Cronenberg's signature is omnipresent.After I've watched the film, I thought – well, it obviously doesn't work as horror for me, but there is strength in portrayal of little girl. From the very beginning, she is completely quite and anemic. The devastating effect the divorce of her parents has one her is evident, mainly in the fact that there is no safe place for her – wherever she is, it's only death, terror and violence. Even her grandparents were divorced and have had terrible marriage (both Barton and Juliana are alcoholics). Near the very end, there is dialogue between her parents; in the middle of arguing mother said that she would rather kill their daughter than let her father have the custody arousing a tremendous rage in her father and ended by being strangled by him. When there is continuity of rage, unhappiness and absence of love among parents (sorry if I am pathetic) – childhood itself is horror.I've read that, at the time of making this movie, Croneberg personally went through divorce and custody trials, and somehow I like to believe that this film was greatly inspired by his terrible experience and frustration.

The unconventional psychotherapist Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed) uses a unique technique developed by him to expose the repressed feelings of his patients. Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) brings his daughter Candice (Cindy Hinds) home after spending the weekend visiting his ex-wife Nola Carveth (Samantha Eggar) that is interned in Dr. Raglan's Somafree Institute. He finds bruises on Candice's body and he tells Dr. Raglan that he will not bring Candice to visit Nola anymore. Meanwhile Dr. Raglan learns that Nola was abused by her mother and not protected by her father when she was young.Frank leaves Candice with his mother-in-law Juliana Kelly (Nuala Fitzgerald) to work, but she is attacked by a dwarf-like creature and brutally murdered. Her ex-husband Barton Kelly (Henry Beckman) comes to town for the funeral, but he is murdered by the same creature. However Frank kills the creature and the autopsy shows that it is not a human offspring. Then Candice's teacher Ruth Mayer (Susan Hogan) has an argument by phone with Nola and she is murdered in front of her class by two creatures that abduct Candice. Frank heads to Somafree and discovers the secret of the deformed children. "The Brood" is among the best horror movies by David Cronenberg. The plot is very well constructed and the gruesome conclusion is disturbing. The idea of Nola licking the fetus was conceived by Samantha Eggar and censored by censors in Canada, United States and United Kingdom. However the Brazilian DVD presents the uncensored version at least of this scene. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Os Filhos do Medo" ("The Sons of the Fear")