The Brood

So David Cronenberg is very well known for doing very strange stuff. One of his first films involved a woman who murdered people using sex. The star of the film was an ex-porn star, but apparently he coaxed an amazing performance out of her. He made the film, The Fly, which may or may not be a remake (I can't recall), with Jeff Goldbloom and Geena Davis. Wonderfully grotesque. In one seen, the editor of a science magazine is watching a video of 'Brundlefly' eating a donut. He explains that in order to eat things, he must vomit an acid on them and then drink it like a smoothie. We don't actually see the drinking. Instead the camera cuts to the editor's horrified face and we hear loud slurps from the camcorder. Cronenberg also did such oddities as Videodrome, Naked Lunch, Eastern Promises, A History of Violence, and Crash (not with don cheadle and lots of feeling; it's about people who get sexually aroused from car crashes).
But, these fine films were not on the menu tonight.
Instead I watched 1979's The Brood. This was recommended to me in King's Danse Macabre, so of course it went straight on the netflix. It doesn't have any big name stars or mind blowing special effects.
What it does have, is a woman lapping the blood from her new 'born' fetus.
Needless to say, it was a pretty great film.
It opens with a man on a stage talking to another man. He is acting and pretending to be the man's father. He is trying to coax a reaction out of the man until finally the man rips his shirt open, revealing a number of small sores. The camera then picks up with Frank Caverth, who is leaving the auditorium and picking up his daughter. Later he gives her a bath and when he has her turn around to wash her back, he notices a number of bruises and scratches. He is enraged by this and confronts the man onstage, Dr Raglan, the owner and main physician/psychiatrist at a hospital specializing in 'psychoplasmic therapy'. Raglan begs off Caverth. We then see Frank talk to a lawyer and his daughter's teacher. The lawyer explains what he can do about his wife, who is hospitalized at the psychoplasmic center; while the teacher voices her concern without actually going into specifics. Caverth is then seen dropping his daughter off with her grandmother, his wife Ruth's mother. Here's were the horror begins. While Raglan is seen doing therapy with Ruth, there is a loud crash in the kitchen at her mother's house. After a few more crashes, the grandmother stands to go freshen her and her granddaughter's drinks. She leaves the daughter, Candice, on the couch. We see plates and boxes falling. Loud grunting and crashing. The grandmother walks into the kitchen and looks around. She sees the mess, but doesn't understand where it came from. Suddenly, she looks up at the top of the cabinets. We see a small for jump onto her and grab her neck. She gasps and shrieks. The tiny monster has a meat tenderizor and decides to go to town on ole grannies face.
Out of concern, Candice decides to investigate. She walks into the kitchen to see the dead, bloody body of her grandmother. She hears a grunt and turns to look at the stairs. Two small hands grip the post holding the banister, and a sinister gray face snarls at her before disappearing into the darkness.
The movie moves from there. There's quite a lot more blood but nothing so over the top as when Ruth 'gives birth' and then decides to clean her young.
It was a good movie, but more than that, it scared the bejeezus out of me. I was sitting on the couch and couldn't help but look around towards the kitchen. Goosebumps rose on my legs. So good.
While I wouldn't watch it with your mother, I definitely recommend it if you're ever in the mood for a sweet horror flick. I also recommend Fourth Kind.
Fuckin Aye.