The Brood is the brainchild of writer-
director David Cronenberg. Forty years
on it arguably remains the former body horror
director’s most personal movie. It concerns
the struggles of a divorced father to protect
his six-year-old daughter, by uncovering the
unorthodox treatments being administered
upon his institutionalised ex-wife and how
this could all be connected to a series of
gruesome murders.
It was written during a particularly turbulent
time for the fi lmmaker, whom had himself
recently gone through a harrowing divorce
and subsequent custody battle for his own
daughter, after she was abducted and placed
into a cult by his ex-wife. Cronenberg claimed
The Brood was his more truthful take on
Kramer Vs Kramer – the Oscar-winning divorce
drama that he viewed as a comparatively
lifeless commentary on the subject.
Following experimental curios Stereo and
Crimes Of The Future, along with eyebrow-
raising body horror exploitation fl icks Shivers
and Rabid, 1979’s The Brood, (Cronenberg’s
fi rst bonafi de studio fi lm) also marked a
distinct turning point for the reigning ‘king of
venereal horror’.
“David seemed to be hitting a new stride
because up until then it had been kind of
gooey horror fi lms,” director-of-photography
Mark Irwin tells SciFiNow. “This was the fi rst
stand up one, which was more dramatically-
based and not so special effects based. I think
he was coming-of-age like the rest of us.”
Indeed, following drag-racing drama Fast
Company, this was the fi rst of fi ve bonafi de
director-cinematographer collaborations
between Irwin and Cronenberg – a successful
partnership that subsequently encompassed
DAVID CRONENBERG’S HARROWING SHOCKER IS STILL THE
FORMER BODY HORROR DIRECTOR’S MOST PERSONAL FILM. WE
TAKE A LOOK INTO THE CHILLING MANIFESTATIONS OF THIS,
NOW 40-YEAR-OLD PRODUCTION
WORDS OLIVER PFEIFFERFLASHBACK
WWW.SCIFINOW.CO.UK |^107
FLASHBACK
THE BROODTHE BROOD
other horror masterpieces like Scanners,
Videodrome, The Dead Zone and The Fly.
Adding a touch of gravitas (and indeed
notoriety) was legendary British actor Oliver
Reed as renegade psychologist Dr Raglan,
who practices the controversial metaphysical
therapy of ‘psychoplasmics’ on his patients,
which involves the physical manifestation
of rage. “[He] played the perfect overbearing
kind of domineering master of all and David
really investigated a lot in him and his
performance,” continues Irwin. “Ollie was not
the kind of guy who would listen necessarily
but he respected David very much as he had
written the screenplay.”
Indeed, it’s a typically commanding
performance from Reed, yet working with
the notoriously temperamental actor (andfunctioning alcoholic) had its challenges, not
least for the actor himself, who was tackling
his own demons at the time.
“He had a bodyguard, who was also
his stand-in and he would help him with his
lines very closely – working back and forth,”
continues Irwin. “Whenever David would
have [script changes] Ollie would get very
‘RADA’ on everyone. It turned out that Ollie
was dyslexic, so his smokescreen and that
kind of bluff that he would call when there
were script changes on the spot, was to call
everyone an amateur.”
Reed’s scenes with British actress Samantha
Eggar, who played his patient Lola, the
troubled wife of Frank Carveth (Art Hindle),
remain some of the most powerful. Irwin
suggests this intense chemistry was enhancedThere’s such
raw power.