The Brood

Cronenberg puts all the horror on the shoulders on the “killers dwarfs” wearing children overalls and wielding hammers, unfortunately, it’s mostly gratuitous and not very scary. You can't deny the chilling, bleak atmosphere, but if you can't take the core of all evil seriously, it can hardly frighten you or arouse any unpleasant emotions. (07/01/2008)

I was expecting monster horror and I got something completely different, but I haven't seen a horror movie with mutated goblins yet, so why not. David Cronenberg once again does a great job with the atmosphere especially in the final third, but this time he didn't satisfy me enough in the first half to make me cheer with excitement like I did in the second half, so I can't in good conscience give it 4*. Definitely Croneneberg's best horror film after The Fly and Shivers. (01/08/2014)

The scene where a woman gives birth to another child is so grotesque that it will stick in your memory permanently. The same applies when the young creatures attack little Candice. I wouldn't want to be in that young actress's shoes. The film might turn some peoples’ stomachs, but its power lies not in visual disgust but in the abhorrence of the human psyche and what people are willing to do to achieve their goals, no matter what they may be. (11/22/2013)

Except for the finale, it's only a horror film at times (though it's in those moments that its intensity is massive). As I gradually become more familiar with Cronenberg's films, I am slowly beginning to see the "spiritual" in them, and I honestly prefer it to his favorite explicit nastiness, which perhaps some people find daring, untethered, original, and unconventional, but they are the reason I don’t enjoy Cronenberg that much). What I especially appreciate about The Brood is the thorough and impressive expertise (to write just "analysis" would be insufficient) of the originally pure mother who is separated from her child and must live in forced isolation and estrangement from her family. Remarkable, non-mainstream, distinctive, impressive. (01/03/2011)

After second screening, The Brood is one of the more sluggish and lesser satisfactory works of David Cronenberg. Once you know where it's all headed, it doesn’t have the same impact (compared to that, for example, Scanners impressed me strongly on the second viewing). Nevertheless, with its ideas, naturalistic imagery, and chilly Canadian atmosphere, it is still an admirable work, the ending of which will surely be remembered by everyone. (02/18/2021)