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The Brood: Limited Edition
[Blu-ray 4K]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Second Sight Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (3rd April 2025). |
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The Film
 Prize of the International Critics' Jury (Special Mention): David Cronenberg (winner) - Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival, 1981 Genie (Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role): Robert A. Silverman (nominee), Best Performance by a Foreign Actress: Samantha Eggar (nominee), Best Achievement in Art Direction/Production Design: Carol Spier (nominee), Best Music Score: Howard Shore (nominee), and Best Achievement in Sound: Joe Grimaldi and Bryan Day (nominee) - Separated from his wife Nola (The Collector's Samantha Eggar), construction company owner Frank Carveth (Black Christmas' Art Hindle) must still bring their daughter Candy (Deadline's Cindy Hinds) to scheduled visits even while she is undergoing intensive therapy with Dr. Hal Raglan (Women in Love's Oliver Reed) who practices a type of therapy known as "psychoplasmics" in which patients externalize on their body feelings they cannot express vocally or even consciously. When Frank is giving his daughter a bath, he sees bruises and scratch marks on her back. Raglan warns Frank for the sake of his family's well-being against stopping visitation, telling him it could push Nola over the edge. Frank consults a lawyer (Meatballs' Larry Solway) who advises him that the courts will likely side with Nola even if psychoplasmics is a sham and Raglan a charlatan so Frank stops visitation and starts digging up dirt on Raglan. He starts with Jan Hartog (Prom Night's Robert A. Silverman), a former patient of Raglan's who is suffering from lymphosarcoma, as a cancerous side effect of his psychoplasmics therapy, and Hartog warns Frank that any psychological damage Frank alleges Raglan has exerted on his wife will soon become physiological, revealing how his own body has physically revolted against each other with external cancerous growths. Meanwhile, Raglan intensifies his therapy sessions with Nola, believing that getting her to take responsibility for Candy's injuries means getting to the root of her own repressed rage at her abusive mother (The Silent Partner's Nuala Fitzgerald) and her alcoholic father (Marnie's Henry Beckman) who looked the other way. When Frank stops Nola's visitation to Candy, people who Nola believes have hurt her and are trying to destroy her family become the targets of murderous beings that are not entirely human. Made in the aftermath of Shivers and Rabid – and the for-hire effort Fast Company - and preceding Scanners and his first studio horror Videodrome, The Brood is a far more personal and less "detached" body horror effort from David Cronenberg which he described as his "Kramer vs. Kramer but more realistic," inspired less by the facts of than the emotions he experienced during his own divorce and custody battle. The film embodies the seventies skepticism about self help gurus, including those of a more scientific bent even if it leaves the mechanics of psychoplasmics more nebulous than Shivers' sex parasite or Rabid's bloodthirsty skin grafts; indeed, however straightforward the plot seems as the viewer gradually puts the pieces together ahead of the protagonist, intriguing ambiguities remain about whether Nola was actually abused as a child or if she manifested her inner rage externally on her body even before her treatment which may just have focused it; on the other hand, when the film hints that her daughter has the same abilities, will her own rage have been shaped not only by her mother but by her father whose neglect of her suggests that his investigation might have been as motivated by his concern for her safety as it is "getting at" Nola. The film in some ways anticipates Andrzej Zulawski's more hysterically-pitched Possession, also inspired by the director's divorce and features a fractured family in which the estranged wife who also externalizes her spiritual crisis by giving birth to a creature. Like most Cronenberg male protagonists, Hindle's Frank seems pretty passive even when he is driving the plot, but this allows the viewer to better focus on Eggar and Reed as they effect the plot from relative isolation. In what seems like a special guest appearance, Eggar benefits from the film's ambiguities as someone who is either truly suffering or has found validation for her frustrations with a scientist. Reed's Raglan, on the other hand, seems as much a showman as genuinely concerned for his "queen bee," coming to realize too late the damage his therapy as his position as surrogate father takes on an incestuous edge due to his attraction to Nola (which may have caused her to further focus her anger on her real father). While the Zulawski film offers up a double of the protagonist's wife not so much as a new love interest but an alternate, more articulate version, The Brood only seems to be presenting Candy's teacher Ruth (Disturbing Behavior's Susan Hogan) as a love interest because she is one of only three adult female characters in the entire film but she actually turns out to be an example (along with perhaps Candy) of collateral damage of Nola's rage. The Brood is also the first collaboration between the Cronenberg core including composer Howard Shore (Silence of the Lambs), production designer Carol Spier (Silent Hill), and cinematographer Mark Irwin, the latter with Cronenberg up through The Fly before he was replaced by Peter Suschitzky (Dead Ringers), resulting in a film that seems more deliberate in its style and design than his earlier two horror efforts. Nicholas Campbell, who had previously appeared in Fast Company and later in Cronenberg's Naked Lunch, has a small role here as Raglan's assistant. 
Video
The Brood was distributed theatrically in the United States by New World and in the U.K. by Alpha Films shorn of roughly thirty seconds for an R-rating which carried over to early VHS releases while the Canadian VHS turned up in some American rental shops with the full-strength version. When MGM got the film through Embassy's video deal, they restored the footage for their 2003 DVD. Arrow Films in the U.K. put out a fullscreen, barebones DVD or the R-rated version in 1999 but Anchor Bay took advantage of the MGM restoration for their two-disc DVD, although that edition featured a native PAL widescreen transfer of the R-rated verison while the unrated version on the second disc was unfortunately an NTSC-to-PAL conversion. Second Sight took their first whack at the title on Blu-ray in 2013 from MGM's HD master – Second Sight's extras were ported over to France's 2014 1080i50 Blu-ray - while Criterion's 2015 Blu-ray came from a new 2K restoration of the 35mm interpositive and ported over one of Second Sight's interviews to supplement their documentary and archival extras but were overshadowed by Wicked-Vision's 2016 Blu-ray featuring new interviews and a pair of commentaries (only one of them in English, however). Second Sight's limited edition 4K UltraHD/Blu-ray combo – also available separately in standard edition 4K UltraHD and Blu-ray editions without the paper extras – comes from a new 4K restoration approved by Cronenberg and the 2160p24 HEVC 1.85:1 Dolby Vision/HDR10-compatible 4K UltraHD and 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray that seems to strike a happier medium between the too magenta MGM HD master and the 2K master that had more of a cooler and sometimes greener tinge. Here, skin tones are healthier and wardrobe and décor pop in contrast to the chilly exteriors in the literal snow or getting a blue push when seen through picture windows in the background of interior scenes shot with tungsten-balanced film. Blood that ranged from fruit punch red in the DVD master and red-orange in the 2K master now looks a bit darker, making the "birth" scene more queasy (and the brood fetus looking less like an infant crash test dummy). The brood faces hold up less in long shot where they are immobile masks but in the new grade (particularly HDR10), they look a bit more cold bluish white than gray, especially in a few shots where they are glimpsed in snowy exteriors or bright white interiors. 
Audio
The sole feature audio track is a strong 24-bit English LPCM 1.0 mono that highlights Shore's stabbing string score and various foley effects and monster hisses but also clearly delivers the dialogue, which is particularly helpful in appreciating Reed's soft-spoken performance and the nuances of both his manipulation and doubt as he gradually loses control of the situation. Optional English SDH subtitles are largely free of errors apart from one transcription error of "buy" as "by." 
Extras
The film is accompanied by two audio commentary tracks. Newly-recorded for Second Sight is the audio commentary by film historians Martyn Conterio and Kat Ellinger who discuss the much-noted autobiographical aspect of Cronenberg's divorce and custody battle while pointing out that it has been wildly exaggerated (with Conterio specifically citing Mark Irwin's account, see below) while also noting the surrealistic way the film "erupted" from Cronenberg's mind and emotions while he was intending to script what would become Scanners. Cronenberg's background as a biologist is cited as the reason that he is able to couch Gothic horror and science fiction concepts in scientific language that is logical rather than just jargon intended to overwhelm the viewer. They also discuss the film's story and the focus on Nola's "evil" while the film does not interrogate the usual passive Cronenberg hero's "victim narrative" and the effects of his own neglect on his daughter. Ported from the German Blu-ray is the audio commentary by film scholar William Beard who points out that the film's "shape of rage" of akin to psychosomatic reactions like rashes – whereas this reviewer had interpreted it as a subconscious kind of self-harm, at least as far as patients like Mike (Love and Human Remains' Gary McKeehan) who manifests on his body the guilt he feels for hating his beloved father during psychodrama sessions with Raglan – and noting that the process here is entirely through psychic intervention rather than the medical operations of the earlier two Cronenberg body horrors. He also points out another contrast in the film's wintry, old-fashioned setting in contrast to the more modernist environments of the earlier films and the shorts, the focus on family drama, and the respective medical recommendations to Nola's and Candy's repressed traumas offered by Raglan and the police psychiatrist (Heavenly Bodies' Reiner Schwarz).  Ported from the earlier Second Sight edition are a quartet of interviews starting with "Meet the Carveths" (19:48) in which Fangoria editor Chris Alexander reunites Hindle and Hinds for a discussion and location visit to the school. Hindle observes that he might have got his role through nepotism as the younger brother of superbike rider Lang Hindle (Cronenberg being a motorcycle enthusiast) and Hinds recalls acting in a horror film as a child, noting that some of the children in the school attack really were frightened. They also recall their impressions of Reed and his antics on the film and after hours while only Hindle actually acted opposite Eggar who Hinds did not meet until the wrap party. "Producing The Brood" (11:10) is an interview with executive producer Pierre David (Visiting Hours) who recollects the tax shelter years which was first exploited by lawyers and accountants before experienced producers like himself started getting involved, and that he got to work with Cronenberg because Cinepix's producers who produced his first two horror films could not wrap their heads around The Brood. He too recalls Reed's antics – his brother being flown in to mind him – Roger Corman's involvement (Joe Dante cut the film's trailer), its worldwide distribution, and noting that it was the first film where Cronenberg started receiving good critical reviews. "The Look of Rage" (13:33) is an interview with cinematographer Irwin in which he discusses Cronenberg's autobiographic aspect in the film, and perhaps he does indeed overstate it but he reveals that he had written his film school thesis on Cronenberg's short films so perhaps he tends towards overly-analytical. He discusses replacing Cronenberg's earlier cinematographer René Verzier (Of Unknown Origin) on Fast Company, the film's fall color palette, and Cronenberg's "more blood" catchphrase on the film. "Character for Cronenberg" (10:24) is an interview with actor Silverman who discusses his schooling, and moving back and forth between Montreal, California, and New York throughout his career. He reveals that he was hit by a car and severely injured around the time of the film, contrasting his performances in his earlier Cronenberg appearances with The Brood which was some time after he started his own self-directed physical therapy (which possibly explains his exercises in the film). Ported from the German Blu-ray is "Scoring The Brood" (7:51), an interview with composer Shore who knew Cronenberg when they were kids and he was already making underground films. Shore had only one feature assignment behind him (the mind-numbing thriller I Miss You, Hugs and Kisses) before he asked Cronenberg if he could score a film for him. He notes his lack of professional training in scoring, sketching out cues for sequences from memory rather than spotting and going into the studio with a twenty-one-piece orchestra string section and pretty much recording live with little editing or processing. "Cronenberg - The Early Years" (13:16) is an interview with Cronenberg from 2011, and pretty much focuses on Shivers as the director recalls directing shorts and wanting to make a feature at a time when government-funded Canadian film industry was primarily doing social realism dramas or fishing documentaries apart from Cinepix who had done some softcore porn films. He even considered directing one himself before showing them his script for "The Parasite Murders" which was a horror film but had a sexploitation angle. He also recalls the difficulty funding such an unprecedented work and how he might have moved to California if fudning had not come through. New to this edition is "Anger Management: Cronenberg's Brood and the Shapes of Cinematic Rage" (22:27), a video essay by film historian Leigh Singer whose discussion covers not so much "body horror" as the body as a terrain and battleground for Cronenberg's themes with a seemingly inordinate amount of time and clips dedicated to other film models in which rage transforms the body or targets aggressors from Carrie to different Marvel Comics Universe iterations of "The Incredible Hulk"; however, the piece does compare the basis of those "powers" and their exploitation with Nola's lack of conscious control of them. 
Packaging
The limited edition comes in a rigid slipcase with new artwork by Krishna Shenoi and includes a 120-page book with new essays by Jenn Adams, William Beard, Craig Ian Mann, Carolyn Mauricette, Shelagh Rowan-Legg, Amber T, Alexandra West and Scott Wilson, as well as six collectors' art cards while the aforementioned concurrent separate standard edition 4K UltraHD and Blu-ray come in a standard black keep case.
Overall
Made in the aftermath of the more outrageous Shivers and Rabid, David Cronenberg's take on Kramer vs. Kramer in The Brood is a far more personal and less "detached" body horror effort.
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