After hearing Edgar Wright talk on a podcast about how disturbing the school teacher scene was in David Cronenberg’s The Brood (1979), I was compelled to finally watch it, which you can too if you have access to SBS OnDemand (along with another Cronenberg classic, Scanners). Fuelled by Cronenberg’s own divorce at the time, this is about a custody battle between Frank (Art Hindle) and Nola (Samantha Egger) over their daughter Candice (Cindy Hinds). Nola is in the secluded care of Dr Raglan (Oliver Reed, delightfully hammy) who is pioneering “psychoplasmic” therapy, pushing patients to physically manifest their emotions, mainly anger and rage. The result of which are hooded child-like creatures murdering people with mallets. This film still had the power to disturb from some of the psychological concepts to the trademark body horror and grisly effects. The great thing about Cronenberg – along with the chilly, depressive, low budget Canadian atmosphere – is his classical style, slowly building situation and character before unveiling the horrors that everyone remembers. Howard Shore’s first score for Cronenberg as well. I dug The Brood and I am still keen to track down earlier Cronenberg films like Rabid and Shivers.
VHS Tracking 