Mutuelles/Elgin. Director David Cronenberg; Producer Claude Heroux; Screenplay David Cronenberg; Camera Mark Irwin; Editor Alan Collins; Music Howard Shore; Art Director Carol Spier
Oliver Reed
Samantha Eggar
Art Hindle
Cindy Hinds
Henry Beckman
Nuala FitzGerald
A horror entry which casts children in the role of malevolent little monsters, The Brood is an extremely well made, if essentially unpleasant, shocker.
Cronenberg's helming is skillful enough to command attention even through his script's needlessly long stretches of dialog.
Action is relatively plodding stuff, with young parent Art Hindle trying to keep his daughter away from mother Samantha Eggar, who's supposedly in psychotherapy at the posh forested retreat of analyst Oliver Reed. Action is spiked with the mysterious murders of Eggar's parents.
Reed registers forcefully as the egotistical doctor and Eggar is appropriately flipped out but, unfortunately, most of the running time is spent with Hindle center stage and the actor is just too morose to enlist much sympathy, despite his plight.
(Color) Available on VHS, DVD. Extract of a review from 1979. Running time: 91 MIN.
Contact Variety Staff at
news@variety.com