The Brood

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David Cronenberg's 1979 horror film stars Oliver Reed as the charismatic head of a psychiatric institute whose revolutionary new treatment consists of encouraging a physical manifestation—in the form of welts, scars, dripping growths—of the patient's repressed emotions. All goes well until he encounters Samantha Eggar, a young woman who burns with so much resentment against her family that her physically projected anger takes on a murderous life of its own. In some ways it's the most direct and personal of Cronenberg's films, radiating a sexual revulsion that is the most vivid expression of his profoundly puritanical spirit, yet the execution is disappointingly blocky and tepid. With Art Hindle. R, 90 min. By Dave Kehr

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