“The Brood” Available Now from Second Sight!
After a series of mentally abusive behavior, Frank Carveth’s wife Nola resides under the unorthodox psychology of Dr. Hal Raglan whose controversial impersonation techniques to break down his patients’ dissociative psychological hangups and destructive blocks. After months of therapy and witnessing Dr. Raglan’s methods in action, Frank is ready to pull the plug on the doctor’s sideshow sessions he deems are doing more harm than good when his daughter shows signs of physical abuse after a visit with her mother. The prolonged verbal bout to get his wife out of Raglan’s care leads to Frank confiding in Nola’s mother who is found brutally murdered soon after. When Nola’s estranged father comes into town to oversee the burial arrangements, he’s also brutally murdered. Frank begins to connect pieces, theorizing that Dr. Raglan’s procedures and the murders may be linked and as he investigates further, the truth is more terrifying than he could ever imagine.
Surging with emotional turmoil through a bitter divorce with ex-wife Margaret Hindson, Canadian body-horror director David Cronenberg pulled the rancorous inspiration from that turbulent time to write the originial screenplay for “The Brood,” a 1979 released thriller between an estranged couple, the effect of their ascending troubles upon their only child during the separation, and the sort of radical and systematic behaviors and practices used to reform a relationship bond that actually divides the emotional expanse even further. Sprinkle a little of the unknown and grotesque abilities of unnatural corporeal world in there and you have yourself one hell of a dysfunctional and undomesticated horror only the unconventional David Cronenberg could conjure. “The Brood” is produced by Claude Héroux, who would go on to produce Cronenberg’s next series of films, “Scanners” and “Videodrome,” and the Ontario filmed production is a studio venture from the CFDC (Canadian Film Development Corporation), Elgin International Films, and Mutual Productions.
Art Hindle is in the role of Frank Carveth, a father initially skeptical and frustrated with his wife’s supervised treatment and care. The “Black Christmas” and “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” actor Hindle plays the role of a hinged investigative husband-parent involved into something far more unbelievable than initially imagined. Next to his on screen dazed and mentally tarnished wife by Samantha Eggar, of “The Exterminator” and “Demonoid,” Hindle enacts normal responses that carry over into extreme situations when those around him – his mother-in-law (Nuala Fitzgerald, “Obsession”), his father-in-law (Henry Beckman, “Side Roads”), and his daughter’s teacher (Susan Hogan, “Phobia”) who might have had a little something-something with while on the rocks with the misses – dies a violent death at the hands of kid-sized mutants that resemble, partially, his own daughter Candace (Cindy Hinds, “The Dead Zone”). As Nola Carveth, Eggars is only present in a few scenes alongside Dr. Raglan, played by the formidable British actor Oliver Reed (“Paranoiac,” “Gladiator”), as a staring into space, emotionally compromised woman struggling to cope with her past that makes her angry and upset and, in turn, makes her inexplicably conjure do-bidders in the birthing means of advanced evolution or in a parallelism to eusocial insects, like bees or ants. Reed is the monkey in the middle of all of this between fending off Frank Carveth who challenges the results of his unorthodox psychological methods while also using those methods to unearth the root cause of Nola Carveth’s strange and unusual behavior and, eventual, psychic abilities. Reeds delivers his typical stoic indifference which makes him ideal for a confident character of the scientific community eager for results rather than feeding his motivations with emotional fodder by empathizing with Carveth’s concerns. Gary McKeehan (“Rabid”) and Robert A. Silverman (“Naked Lunch”) costar.
In his 50-year plus career, David Cronenberg has evolved in style, substance, and story that dip into more of alternate universes and deliver new ways to blend the future into an organic composite with commercial and social sub context. While technology and personal and professional growth have developed the director into what he has accomplished and known for today, especially on the verge of his latest release with the living and dead connection theme in “The Shrouds,” the core of what David Cronenberg does best and still does today has an etiology leading back to his earlier work and “The Brood” is definitely an archetype of his niche. Cronenberg works the narrative up to his reveal of body horror, and “The Brood” is dangerously on the edge of being atypical, subjecting audiences to more of a buildup in the story and the delimitation of character disclosure without a steady course of the maladjusted, mutated or modified human body as the villain or the escape, only for that theme to be quasi hinted and then unveiled at the end in a shocking reveal. “The Brood” plays more of the slasher tones, using the children, dwarfs, or however you want to describe the little, mutant minions to be unknown villain tropes, even when one is laid up on a morgue slab for examination of its biology, or lack thereof. Cronenberg’s directed ambiguity tees up one of the best endings of his career and, perhaps, even horror cinema as “The Brood” is queen sized stomach-churner, literally.
David Cronenberg’s “The Brood” arrives in 4K on a Ultra HD Blu-ray from UK boutique label Second Sight Films. The BD100 is HEVC encoded with a 4K resolution or a pixel count of 2160 with Dolby Vision HDR10 and presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. On the back cover, the 4K restoration is approved by David Cronenberg. There’s definitively a more positive treatment of the restored transfer that brightens with a slightly tweaked color grading compared to other DVD or Blu-ray releases, improving delineation as well as rectifying intended details to burst through what’s been long frustrating by a darkened wall of low-resolution definition. Retaining and sustaining cinema coarse grain, the picture looks and feels incredibly natural without the presence of compromising touchups and smoothing overs that do more harm than good in the plastic-like approach to restoration. The UHD reinforces the coloring with vibrant richness and range, boosting the once little Canadian film that could into an expensive-appearing optical overhaul that puts to shame previously shelved videos. Audio fidelity is too retained with a LPCM 1.0 mono that although funnels through a single output is more than an adequate mix all in thanks to the competent sound engineering of Peter Burgess and team to amalgamate recorded sound and post-production ADR into a brawny singular unit that meshes nicely. Dialogue foots the bill as a clean and clear presentation, the ambient sound design renders distinctly over without ambiguity, and longtime David Cronenberg collaborator and friend Howard Shore conducts an orchestra score that breaks through and keeps the course with an unforgettable amount of tension build. English subtitles are available. Special features are aplenty with a new audio commentary by film critics and historians Martyn Conterio and Kat Ellinger, a second commentary with film academic William Beard, interviews with actors Art Hindle and Cindy Hinds moderated by Fangoria’s editor Chris Alexander Meet the Carveths, an interview with executive producer Pierre David Producing the Brood, interview with cinematographer Mark Irwin The Look of Rage, interview with composer Howard Shore Scoring the Brood, an interview with actor Robert A Silverman Character for Cronenberg, a new video essay by film journalist Leigh Singer Anger Management: Cronenberg’s Brood and Shapes of Cinematic Rage, and an archived David Cronenberg interview The Early Years. The standard Second Sight release comes in the traditional 4K UHD black Amaray case with new unnamed, unsigned illustrated cover art. The UK certified 18 film is presented region free in this release and has a runtime of 92 minutes.
Last Rites: Cronenberg’s play on the word Brood is next level genius with litter rage as a result of mental health and a broken home. The director’s filmic roots have proved time-and-time again his mastery of moviemaking as his body horror and thought-inducing stories, intermixed with social commentary, are complex visual and narrative devices braised an organic edge.
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