THE BROOD - This is an excellent film, one which, for me, hasn't diminished with repeated viewings. In fact quite the reverse - although, as I get older, the film's emotional core supersedes its more grotesque aspects. Croneneberg is often portrayed as a cold conceptualist, but this film feels painful and true in its depiction of the culmulative effect of generations of abuse. There are great Burroughsian (OK, maybe Cronenbergian) asides, such as the transference addict who just wants someone, anyone, to be his father for a minute or two. The killer kids are still creepy after all these these years, too, although, again, these aspects feel a little like the window dressing surrounding an even more harrowing drama. I actually got quite upset whilst watching it tonight, a testimony to 'The Brood's strength - a strange power which bypasses the film's woodeness and opens up the dark terrain of the director's biography and the general question of generational pain.
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