The Brood

The Brood (1979) is set at a psychotherapy clinic. Doctor Raglan teaches his patients to express their rage through their bodies; welts, sores and swellings appear on the skin. Nola, his most severe patient, produces something else. Her husband, fighting for custody of their daughter, tries to work out what is happening. The film comes directly out of Cronenberg's own life. He wrote it after his divorce and the custody battle over his daughter. In his own words, it is his version of Kramer vs. Kramer, only more realistic. He cast accordingly, looking for people who resembled himself and his ex-wife. Of Samantha Eggar, who plays Nola, his comment was plain: she looked a little like his ex-wife. Eggar found the script almost Shakespearean. Oliver Reed, who plays Raglan, took a reduced fee. It was shot in Toronto in November and December 1978 on a budget of 1.4 million dollars, 200,000 of it from the Canadian Film Development Corporation. The crew was so small that Eggar remembers about seven people on set during her scenes. Cuts were demanded for an R rating in America. One of the excised moments had been Eggar's own suggestion, and Cronenberg observed that removing it left something worse in the viewer's head. The film grossed over five million dollars and Cronenberg bought a house with what he made. It runs 92 minutes. Good for: body horror, films about divorce and rage, and Cronenberg. Less good for: there is violence against children and those scenes are heavy. The science is never explained. Its woman is constructed as the source of the rage, which is contestable; Cronenberg defends it as a personal film.