Popular reviews

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  Review by Will Menaker ★★★★ 5

  Oliver Reed's T-levels are off the charts in this one. Amazing hair, astonishing jaw, incredible winter coats.

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  Review by Matthew Christman ★★★

  I was trying to watch the Croods. Very disturbing.

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  Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 4

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  Cronenberg is the king of taking very human psychological contradictions and perversities and rendering them in the vulnerability of flesh, and here he works through his own divorce and familial fallout in just about the grossest, scariest way someone could lol. Accidentally double featured this with Kramer vs. Kramer which was a wild experience because both tackle the subject of a couple who find themselves in a messy break-up/custody battle (despite still being complicated and sad apparently the Benton film was so light and optimistic about the subject to Cronenberg that he was furious and inspired to write this), but the vision here of the same situation is so nasty, so pessimistic to the point where it's nearly apocalyptic in…

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  Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★★★

  David Cronenberg turning his own ugly feelings about his messy divorce into a disturbing dive into psychological scars of family. Art Hindle’s blank face is the perfect foil to such dissection and the film has some of the most effective horrifying images put on film particularly when they are the most simple (as a 15 year old those little deformed hands coming from under the bed really did a number on me). Even the pure little girl sight is disturbing. And then there is the moment in which the ex-husband arrives in the school to murdered body of the teacher and all those little children crying. When it comes to psychological damage, The Brood has something for everyone.

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  Review by Sean Baker 15

  Another film that felt like a first time watch because 1) it's been over 30 years 2) Criterion's restoration is so good that it almost feels like a different film from the VHS I rented when I was in my teens.

  I forgot how in line this film is with Cronenberg's fascination/obsession with body horror. I re-visited thinking that I would like it better after all these years but quite honestly, still low in my Cronenberg ranking.

  Criterion release is great. So much on the disc including interviews, tv spots and Cronenberg's 2nd feature Crimes of the Future, which I've never seen and will so soon.

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  Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 9

  This is exactly what I was hoping it would be. I was in the mood for some Cronenberg, and I most certainly got some Cronenberg. This movie is absolutely, positively off the wall. I feel like with The Brood, the Cronenberg that we all know and love came into being. Not that there was anything wrong with his previous seventies work, but in my eyes, this was the film that paved the way for the director's subsequent masterpieces: Videodrome, The Fly, etc. You thought that those films had insane endings? Wait until you get a load of this one's finale. Holy goodness gracious on wheels, I did not see the final half hour of this film coming... from the classroom…

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  Review by matt lynch ★★★

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  scary hammer-wielding killer kids in snowsuits and Samantha Eggar's external womb are never going to be not fucking terrifying. while the shape of Cronenberg's rage is conceptually powerful, though, his obvious and deeply personal pessimism seems to me misplaced, and the film is somewhat unbalanced by some misogyny seemingly directed at his ex-wife. while Art Hindle never plays an upstanding spouse, exactly, the core idea of his wife's inchoate rage spawning uncontrollable murderous offspring -- a condition that spreads to their actual daughter -- is somewhat simplistically tossed off: bitches be crazy. the fear, suspicion and jealousy here is intrinsic, unexplained, and inevitable but never interrogated; this is like an R.D. Laing family nexus seminar before he was discredited.

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  Review by amaya ★★★★

  rip to sigmund freud you would've loved the brood (1979)

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  Review by Ian West ★★★★★ 8

  Naturally, personal Cronenberg is a grotesque psychological relationship nightmare seething with repulsive mental anguish body terror. Expertly crafted late 70’s downer pleasure that’s equal parts fascinating and harrowing… plus Oliver Reed is in full god mode as far as being the most terrifying and intense human on earth. I don’t revisit this often, but it might just be my favorite film in David Cronenberg’s disgusting grand cinematic guignol filmography.

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  Review by Matt Singer ★★★

  Liked this more on rewatch. As a movie it's flawed, but as a contraceptive device, it's about as good as they come.

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  Review by sarah squirm ★★★★ 1

  canadian mid century modern + gorgeous women with wide-set eyes +  little freaks in rainbow snowsuits ??? cronenberg i love you !!!

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  Review by Neil Bahadur ★★★★½

  The family unit is at it again