With apologies to any fans of Shivers, Rabid, or Fast Company, I consider The Brood to be the first great Cronenberg film. This was a film born out of Cronenberg's anger towards his soon to be ex-wife at the time, and man does it show. While Kramer vs Kramer did a good job of showing all sides of a divorce and managed to make them all look sympathetic, Cronenberg instead focused on the anger, fear, and chaos that occurs in divorce. Just as this movie became the physical symbol of Cronenberg's rage, the brood in the film become an equally terrifying physical presence of rage and retribution.
What I think made this movie so good was that all of the actors, even the child actors, were very good. Oliver Reed in particular just seems to grab your attention in every scene that he is in. I believe this was the first of what would become one of the greatest director-composer collaborations in cinematic history between Cronenberg and Howard Shore, and the score for this film is excellent. It constantly borders on a Psycho-esque Hitchcock tone, but manages to be its own eerily unique composition. The effects and visuals are absolutely fantastic and shocking, as one should expect from a Cronenberg film.
One may find fault that the movie starts off very slow. However, I really liked how the movie started off slow and built up further and further until peaking at the climax, and I think the climax of this movie may be one of the tensest moments I have ever experienced in cinema. The movie ends in true Cronenberg fashion, and I think that the final shot of the film was probably scariest in concept to Cronenberg himself with what he was going through in real life at the time. This film was very personal to him, and it is obvious that he invested a lot of himself into it. I only wish more directors would do the same with their movies.
What I think made this movie so good was that all of the actors, even the child actors, were very good. Oliver Reed in particular just seems to grab your attention in every scene that he is in. I believe this was the first of what would become one of the greatest director-composer collaborations in cinematic history between Cronenberg and Howard Shore, and the score for this film is excellent. It constantly borders on a Psycho-esque Hitchcock tone, but manages to be its own eerily unique composition. The effects and visuals are absolutely fantastic and shocking, as one should expect from a Cronenberg film.
One may find fault that the movie starts off very slow. However, I really liked how the movie started off slow and built up further and further until peaking at the climax, and I think the climax of this movie may be one of the tensest moments I have ever experienced in cinema. The movie ends in true Cronenberg fashion, and I think that the final shot of the film was probably scariest in concept to Cronenberg himself with what he was going through in real life at the time. This film was very personal to him, and it is obvious that he invested a lot of himself into it. I only wish more directors would do the same with their movies.