Brood, The

I think it was Ebert that noted that David Cronenberg’s chief obsession is to make us feel disgusting about our own bodies. Continuing from The Bad Seed, I rented another ‘evil children’ movie last night, The Brood.

Brood captures the suspicion of 1970’s breakthroughs in therapy – I think this was chiefly called ‘encounter groups.’ A charismatic, controlling doctor keeps a man’s wife sequestered in a secluded retreat center to undergo intensive and strange therapy sessions. When the wife’s mother is killed by a strange dwarven creature, suspicions arise in exactly what is happening at Dr. Raglan’s center.

Gradually the bodies pile up and the husband discovers exactly what heinous science the good doctor has wrought. This, of course, features our Cronenberg money shot involving a strange human body gross-out.

The movie is kinda slow/boring but reminds me of other ‘chamber pieces’ like Hellraiser that explore the human relationships behind a horror story plot. Videodrome remains more freaky. I still haven’t seen Shivers. Though Scanners was fun, too.