The Brood

The normalcy with which THE BROOD begins is its greatest strength. Opening to a couple of men sitting on a stage, hashing out some familial turmoil, and ending in the downing of lights and the outburst of applause, David Cronenberg shows an event that seems to be one thing, and is in fact, another. We are very familiar with a normal-seeming exhibition, and we become very comfortable with the low-toned greys and blues and lazy winter jackets in the next scene. But while showing us this over-regularness, Cronenberg puts a sick twist on it. In the first scene with the two men, we learn that one is a doctor who poses as the patient's relatives, putting him under a quasi-hypnosis in order to have the patient talk it out with their aggressor. In the second scene, as normal-looking Frank (Oliver Reed) bathes his young daughter, he discovers scratches and bruises all over her back. He goes to the doctor from the first scene, demanding to see his wife, and then demanding that she never see his daughter while she undergoes therapy there. But Frank becomes the victim of a series of grizzly events that befall relatives of his. First, his mother-in-law is murdered by a ghastly, horrid little mutant dwarf, and he faces these creatures over the course of the film. The rationale behind the cretins is eventually explained, and its a reveal to a growing mystery that's shocking, without much sense, and fun. But the whole film undergoes the same sort of normalcy invaded by hatred or evil. It's pretty good.

★★★ out of Five