\n<\/p>\n
\u201cNow here\u2019s a particularly nasty little number,\u201d says Roger Ebert in his one-star review<\/a> of David Cronenberg\u2019s 1979 film The Brood<\/strong><\/em> before launching into what exactly makes it so nasty\u2013killer clones disguised as first-graders, a fetus-licking Samantha Eggar, teachers bludgeoned to death with toy hammers. No offense to Ebert\u2013the iconic film critic had a love-hate relationship with the genre<\/a>, and I\u2019ve always respected his reviews even when I disagreed\u2013but in his dismissal of The Brood<\/strong> <\/em>as a \u201cnauseating\u201d \u201cel sleazo exploitation film,\u201d he actually made it sound tantalizing, especially for body-horror freaks like myself who love seeing women at their worst.\u00a0<\/p>\n If you haven\u2019t seen it yet, let me introduce you to The Brood<\/strong>. <\/em>Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed) tries a radical form of psychotherapy on Nola Carveth (Eggar), a traumatized woman fighting for custody of her five-year-old daughter, Candice (Cindy Hinds). When Candice returns from one of her visits with Nola with scratches and bruises on her back, her father, Frank (Art Hindle), documents her injuries as evidence in order to win full custody of the girl. Nola might not be the best mother, but there\u2019s no way she\u2019d hurt her beloved daughter. There might be something else\u2014actually, many little somethings\u2014hurting Candice. And they\u2019re all made out of Nola\u2019s pain and DNA, ready to attack the targets of her rage.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/p>\n While Ebert didn\u2019t quite get Cronenberg\u2019s vision back then, plenty now praise The Brood<\/em>\u2019s \u201coff the wall\u201d<\/a> but \u201cemotionally realistic\u201d<\/a> depiction of divorce, especially how it affects children. To be clear, this isn\u2019t to say divorce is an inherently bad thing. But like Kramer vs. Kramer, <\/em>which came out the same year as The Brood<\/strong>, <\/em>or 2019\u2019s brutal melodrama Marriage Story<\/em>, Cronenberg accurately captures how quickly children can become collateral damage when adults don\u2019t play fair.\u00a0<\/p>\n <\/p>\n But before you start thinking The Brood<\/strong> <\/em>is probably more tame than Ebert suggested, I\u2019m going to remind you that the film is gross. This is Cronenberg, after all. As Sharai Bohannon put it in a round-up of Cronenberg\u2019s \u201csickest\u201d films earlier this year for Dread Central, \u201cThis psychological body horror hits all of the WTF notes we have come to expect from the filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n I mentioned earlier that Eggar licks a fetus in a moment that famously makes stomachs crawl<\/a>, but that doesn\u2019t come close to capturing just how freaky The Brood <\/strong><\/em>actually gets. I won\u2019t spoil anything, though. You\u2019re just going to have to watch yourself.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Brood<\/strong> <\/em>is streaming on HBO Max. If you love it, let me know: @ashjenexi on Instagram and X.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t