The Brood (1979)
A man tries to uncover an unconventional psychologist's therapy techniques on his institutionalized wife, amidst a series of brutal murders. (R, 92 min.)
Showtimes
Monday, October 24, 2022
7:00 PM
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
7:00 PM
A disturbed woman is receiving a radical form of psychotherapy at a remote, mysterious institute. Meanwhile, her five-year-old daughter, under the care of her estranged husband, is being terrorized by a group of demonic beings. How these two story lines connect is the shocking and grotesque secret of this bloody tale of monstrous parenthood from David Cronenberg, starring Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar. With its combination of psychological and body horror, The Brood laid the groundwork for many of the director’s films to come, but it stands on its own as a personal, singularly scary vision. [Janus]
Starring: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle
Director: David Cronenberg
Genre(s): Horror, Sci-FI
"A cinematic bad dream that generates recurring nightmares."
— Michael Sragow, New Yorker
"Undoubtedly [Cronenberg's] best from this period and also the most troubling."
— Eric Henderson, Slant Magazine
"Genuinely disturbing horror but with Cronenberg producing a slightly deeper edge in his portrait of a troubled family."
— Kim Newman, Empire
"The Brood sees the undisputed king of body horror honing his visceral eye, whilst at the same time offering up several truly iconic images that have quite clearly endured."
— Daniel Green, CineVue
"One of the films that gave rise to the term 'body horror,' David Cronenberg's 1979 shocker is a characteristic mix of the sombre, the wacky and the viscerally grotesque."
— Jake Wilson, The Age (Australia)
"[Cronenberg's] rapid fire direction keeps you bouncing back and forth between laughter and shock with only minor stops for explanatory dialogue and his satirical sophistication never stoops to cheap parody."
— Michael Blowen, Boston Globe
"Powerful and disturbing on both a physical and mental level, The Brood is the first Cronenberg film to use name actors, and marked a significant progression in the director's exploration of biological horror."
— TV Guide Magazine
"Cronenberg’s movie was an early showcase for his tense formal style and intellectual Grand Guignol. He displays a true shock-meister’s instinct by saving the worst for last. The result is a cinematic bad dream that generates recurring nightmares."
— Michael Sragow, The New Yorker
"Cronenberg has become known as a purveyor of body horror, in which the monstrous arises from within rather than without. The Brood cunningly turns this motif into a metaphor for psychotherapy itself, which seeks to dredge up and cast out the monsters haunting the unconscious."
— Jed Mayer, IndieWire
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