THE BROOD may very well be David Cronenberg's masterpiece. It's between this, THE FLY and VIDEODROME for me. For a filmmaker whose works are often (falsely) accused of being cold and dispassionate, this is a deeply emotional and even deeply personal work for the director, as it is very clearly his way of processing his own divorce at the time.
It is, in short, about a man, Frank, who discovers bruises on his five-year-old daughter after she visits her mother, and worries her mother may be the cause. Nola, the mother, is mentally ill and already under observation in an experimental form of therapy called "psychoplasmics" designed by Dr. Hal Raglan played chillingly cool and calm by Oliver Reed.
Frank grows suspicious of the secrecy around Nola's treatment, especially as people are being killed by dwarfish creatures that vaguely resemble his own daughter. He discovers that psychoplasmics allows suppressed emotions to be expressed in an almost telekinetic, physical way. With Nola, it went further, as it turns out that in her compartmentalized rage and abuse she birthed "children" in the vague form of her own, who act out her darkest impulses, eliminating anything she subconsciously resents or deems a threat.
In the film’s most infamous scene, Nola cleans her most recent newborn offspring, licking the blood off of it. It’s horrifying, but what really sells it is the reaction shot of Frank who looks deeply, genuinely mortified. That shot alone sells the whole scene. Not only because he stands in for all of us, it simply sells the realism of an extremely surreal thing.
It’s also tragic. These people were in love, they have a child together, but she is so lost to the children of her own mind, her own angst and rage. This is the moment he sees how far gone she is, for himself, and it’s nothing to do with the state of her body and everything to do with how carefully and motherly she cleans that newborn’s head.
It's a wild, weird, wonderful movie about internalizing pain and the toll it takes on the self and everyone we love. Simply one of Cronenberg's best, if not his best.