The Brood

[Susan]

I recently traded in some movies for these 4:

The Brood
Children of the Damned/Village of the Damned
The 40 year old Virgin
Mimic

I was really excited to get a copy of the "damned" series. I own the remake of Children of the Damned and always liked the original. Chidren of the damned is ok but lacks the punch and has lots of long drawn out scenes. Plus the children weren't all that scary, which i guess was the point. Anyhow

Now - I do not believe I'd ever seen THE BROOD, however I heard various reviews on it and it peeked my curiosity. I do like some of Cronenbergs films - anyhow, I never finished the movie. I like bad movies, I like horror movies, and I love movies about killer children, but I swear i could not stay awake BOTh times i tried viewing this. Generally I nodded off right after grandpa "got it".

That's not to say the movie sucks, the scenes where the freaky mutant children kill are pretty creepy, particularly the bludgeoning scene in the kindergarden classroom. I couldn't help but wonder if those kids were scarred for life after filming that scene.  But there were wayyyy too many dull and extensive scenes that seemed to just be filling in for time.  Anyone have any opinions on this film?

I've seen the others, once again this is the second movie I've bought that i'd never seen and ended up not liking it. Maybe if I can stay awake through the whole thing I might change my mind. I almost ended up with the Wicker man instead...

[dean]

Just bought the Brood myself, and have only flicked through some key scenes just to see what teh hell is going on with it.

Nothing too crazy to catch my attention, but I'll be damned if psychotic kids aren't freaky as hell...

[daveblackeye15]

The Brood kind of creeped me out. Overall I rather enjoyed it. I reminded me of a extended and violent Twilight Zone episode.

[akiratubo]

The Brood was the second Cronenberg movie I saw (The Fly was the first).  The monster kids were scary but, otherwise, I found it to be a little too slow moving.  The Brood is certainly much, much better, from a filmmaking standpoint, than either "They Come From Within" or "Rabid", which rounds out the Cronenberg movies I've seen.  (Rabid is the most fun out of all of them, though.)

I don't count that one with Jeremy Irons because I just skipped straight to the end after about ten minutes.

[Andrew]

Very weird and disturbing.  The twisted therapy sessions conducted by Oliver Reed's character made me uncomfortable and watching the woman lick her newly "born" deformed baby monster clean was ghastly.  I felt a bit sorry for the husband, because he is going to need therapy now too.

The movie does grow long in a few parts.  However, the dull sections do make the killings and other major events leap out at you.

In general, Cronenberg usually finds things that make me uncomfortable.  This is his intent, to pull the viewer out of the "safe" zone and into his twisted, wrong version of reality.  He does it quite well.

[Susan]

boy i'd hate to see all the footage they cut out...assuming they didn't use it all which is what it felt like. You know it's bad when you find yourself fast forwarding just to get to the good parts, because half the stuff was irrelivant. The whole "be my daddy" thing with that guy asking the other guy was a bit uncomfortable and I think I chuckled a little. He was trying too hard for the social commentary. Does anyone actually love this movie? There's a site online where you can exchange books, they should have something like that for movies.

Yep, always loved movies about evil kids - something about it is too darned creepy (which is why Pet Semetary was so popular and The Ring). I remember when I saw "children of the corn" i don't ever think i quite got over the casting

Evil kids in movies

PET SEMETARY
THE RING
CHILDREN OF THE CORN
VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED
CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED
THE OMEN/DAMIEN
THE BAD SEED
THE EXORCIST
IT'S ALIVE!
THE GOOD SON
And various zombie movies

Proving that Hollywood needs to make more movies about evil children

[Doc Daneeka]

You forgot Godsend, I haven't had the pleasure of seeing Brood yet.

[Susan]

Oh yeah - Godsend. I caught part of that on tv a week or so ago. I didn't finish watching so I never got to see if the kid was evil and tried to take out his mother.

I didn't include movies like BAD RONALD or CARRIE with the "evil kid flicks", purely because they are over 15 and it's more believable for a teenager to be psychopathic ;-)

Now, while they didn't kill anyone I have to nominate the twin girls in "THE SHINING" for evil kids. Tortured souls I'm sure, but damn if they weren't scary.

Also, If you have an evil child who wants to kill you, you are more defenseless than if it were an adult because most of us have a conscience. No matter how crazy they are coming at you with the axe, you still don't wanna be the one who killed a kid. So that kinda gives them the upper hand, as an adult we want to reason with them. Characters in films don't often take out zombie kids either.

This totally gives me a topic idea for my blog

[BeyondTheGrave]

I rented The Brood a couple of months ago from Netflix and had the some problem with bordem at some scenes. I stopped paying attention when their was nothing going on. The ending was nasty with the" newborn".

[The Burgomaster]

There is something about this movie that I like.  It isn't great by any means, but I am a fan of early Cronenberg movies.