The Brood (1979) Horror Anger Therapy

The Brood (1979) - David Cronenberg's The Brood is a pretty remarkable film, the horror Cronenberg focuses on is a visceral physical horror not necessarily based in the supernatural. ( Could argue never based on the supernatural) Certainly it is fantastical but based in the body not the soul or ghost or the such. In this case the idea that anger can "give birth" in physical form. In normal therapy the idea is to work through past feelings and abuses through talking and exercises so that they can be accepted and negativity of the experiences can be dispelled. Create a situation that takes power away from those experiences so that they will not have subconscious affect on the patient's life. Or to recognized the effect and learn to control it. Understanding and accepting your past while expressing the feeling that stay with you allows you to work past the hurts and move on. Cronenberg takes a different approach, what if the expression of the feeling of anger and anguish were to take physical form? What if strong emotions manifested in the body? What if the therapy brought those hurts into the world as phyical entities? This film explores that idea in a very unique way.
Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) is estranged from his wife Nola (Samantha Eggar) while she undergoes a very unconventional therapy using a technique called psycho-plasmics.  An instance shows man breaking out in boils as he works through the role playing with head of the facility Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed).  He shows physical signs of the unresolved issues he had with his Father. This releasing of pent up emotions and feeling through physiological changes to her body makes Nola the prize patient. This new form of therapy for Nola was spurred because of abuse issues she had as a child and the fact that she can't express the anger so openly bother her husband. Frank does not approve of the therapy as it seems to unconventional but she has taken this path without him.  When he picks up his daughter Candice (Cindy Hinds) after a visit with her Mother he notices bruises and bite marks on her. Frank is enraged that the staff would allow Nola to harm his little girl and all the denials she expresses only creates tensions between the couple and between Frank and Raglan who is supervising her treatment. Not permitted to see his wife in the stage of therapy she is in he threatens to end all visits until she talks to him.
  What we learn as we go between scenes of people getting killed who just happen to connected to Nola, and scenes of Nola working through issues in session, is that some how her feeling about the people being killed are connected to their deaths. Cronenberg does a nice job slowly connecting the audience, to the killings and the therapy that the woman is going through. The murders, done by strange creatures that look like mutant kids. Are well executed horror scenes, with a similarity in size and how they dress to Candice. We know that she is not involved and more to the point is traumatized by the killings. While Noal works through not only the abuse issues she suffered as a child at the hands of her Mother, but also feelings of abandonment and anger at a Father who did not stop the abuse. Cronenberg does well to run a parallel with Frank being the father who can not stop the traumatic abuse suffered by his daughter Candice at her Mother's hand.
  There are subplots about Frank trying to find out what exactly the secret therapy is that Raglan practices. Unfortunately the only people he can talk to are somewhat crazy sounding former patients. If he was to try to get the courts involved on their words he would probably not get far. Another subplot is that of the Candices's school teacher Ruth Mayer (Susan Hogan) that takes such a wonderfully evil turn. She is the adult noticing the change in her student, and comes to talk to Frank about her at his house.  She baby sits for Frank one night when there is a personal crisis he has to deal with. Nola calls while she is there and becomes really angry when she hears a woman's voice answer the phone. She thinks Mayer is moving in on her husband while she is in treatment. She swears and threatens the innocent teacher before being hung up on. Since the theme of the film is that the mutant creatures seem to go after the people Nola is angry with it is no surprise that the little mutant devils target the teacher. It's the scene that is so shocking and has to be seen to be believed. It is a well set up kill scene.
  In the end even though through most of the movie Dr. Raglan seems adversarial with Frank he helps him deal with Nola in the climax. The mutant kids have taken Candice and Frank needs to get her back. We learn the secret of the therapy in one of the most sickly creepy scenes in film. The relish that Eggar has in the big reveal scene has got to be seen to be appreciated fully. Cronenberg with his wonderful sense of how to visually shock gives us a scene that is just awe inspiring. This film probably falls into the category of woman as monster and may be viewed as somewhat less than feminist in its ideas. Motherhood and birth are the most shocking horror in this film. Frank as the protagonist is somewhat helpless against the female expression of pent up anguish.
Like Nola's father who did not protect Nola from an abusive Mother Frank is not capable of protecting her from her pain thus leading to the therapy the film centers around. Beyond that he is not able to protect Candice from Nola's madness thus repeating the cycle. The visuals in the last third of the movie are worth the viewing. I want to tell you every detail but can't make myself  ruin it for you. Sure most horror fans have seen The Brood and are right with me on this one. Cronenberg is a master and if you haven't and want to see gore in a non-gory way while heightening the tension of the climatic scenes then this is the film for you. This classic is most definitely recommended to all readers of this blog.

Black Christmas (1974) Horror Christmas

Black Christmas (1974) - What is this, a horror movie where you never see the killer? That is the unique approach taken by Black Christmas. There are a lot of shadows, and flashes of eye balls or hands plus a lot of point of view (POV) of the killer but he/she is never revealed. It seem that the killer is male but it is never revealed.  How the film pulls this off is... well it really doesn't pull it off, the lack of closure leaves the viewer feeling a bit cheated if you ask me. Also leaving you cheated is the incredible but true fact that there is absolutely no back story for the killer. I watched the extra features and director Bob Clark did think they were doing something unique, well it is unique but I am not sure it really works. Roy Moore wrote the screenplay and barely worked again after that and I think you can see why.
 I don't recall this film as a child, I would have been 11 when it came out but since we were too poor to attend the movies, I probably missed most things. Nothing, the film opens with the POV of the killer showing up at the sorority house and climbing a trellis to get in an attic window. I guess the killer has randomly chosen this house as the next place to stalk. Later we learn there has been a killing in town and that currently a thirteen year old girl is missing. Still this does nothing to establish anything other than our voyeuristic fascination as the killer moves around the house spying on the occupants. It is a tough sell, the killer when he chatters sounds crazy as shit and you would think there is a story there. Sometimes on the phone there seems to be more than one voice, one male and one female but without a reveal that just stays a mystery
Inside a gathering at the sorority house with girls and their guys hanging out having a good time. We establish characters, Jess (Olivia Hussey) who is having troubles with her boyfriend Peter (Keir Dullea), he is not at the party because he has a concert for his professors at the music conservatory. Its a lot of stress and we see with a phone call she has with him that there is something not right between them that she won't reveal on the phone. Clare (Lynne Griffin) and Chris (Art Hindle) are a couple, and she wonders what her parents will think of him. Barb (Margot Kidder) is a bit of a college alcoholic, loud and boisterous she can be the life of the party of the reason it breaks up. There are a couple of particularly nasty bits she does that show the flaws of her character, early in the film she and all the rest of the girls have gathered around the phone because the prank caller has called. Someone mentions that a couple weeks ago a local girl was raped in the area, and Barb says "Come, on everyone knows you can't rape a local. " This comment really directed at poor Clare who is an actual local attending the college. It is very mean spirited alcohol aided vitriol.  Phyl (Andrea Martin) is there also and the house mother Mrs Mac (Marian Waldman), a woman whose drinking problems have progressed to the point she has bottles hidden all over the house. The other thing we establish at the party is that there has been a prank caller repeatedly calling the house. This is interesting because since it ends up being the killer and has been going on for a while we know the killer has targeted the house well before the events in the film happen.
  The film plays out at a leisurely pace although the first kill happens rather quickly. Clare is up in her room packing and hears sounds in her closet. Thinking that Chris may be playing tricks on her or one of the other girls she creeps over asking "Is anybody there?" as she closes in on the closet we get a POV of the killer as he/she wraps Clare's head in plastic and suffocates her. Then we see the shadow of the killer as Clare's body is taken up into the attic and placed in a rocking chair in the single attic window, head covered in plastic dead. We come back to this image again and again in the film. In fact anyone paying attention outside would see poor Clare when they looked up at that window, but off course nobody does.
  Things get bumped up a notch when Clare's father comes to take her home but she is not at the meeting place. Clare is now noticed to be missing the girls in the house head to the local police station to see if they can get some help. While there they learn that there is a missing 13 year old girl in town. I think the introduction of the police is that they are bungling small time group and by the end of the film you really get to see how poor they are at doing their jobs. They do get involved with the sorority house though and do their best to solve the disappearance they really are inept.
  The primary story line between Jess and Peter is that she is pregnant right at the time that he is preparing for his performance. Since it is 1974 the choices Jess have are discussed on screen with her initially not wanting to tell Peter and just going to have an abortion. She decides he should know though and his immediate response is that they should forgo the lives and dreams they have had up to this point and get married. Jess is not in that particular headset and is more inclined to have an abortion. She does not want to trade her life hopes and dreams because of an accident with a man she does not want to marry. I thought the scenes where they discuss the issue are emotional and honest with realistic reactions and conversation. The topic of how sexual miscalculations put at risk all of the plans of those involved and the dilemma when one person may not want the marriage solution society implies in those situations. Besides being a stage for a discussion between a woman's right to choose and the inherent distaste for the procedure it was a way to make Peter seem angry. So when suspects are being bantered about by the police his name had to come up. The audience can wonder about him but never seriously, the characters in the film though definitely see him with skeptical eyes. They also have the poor guy get this news right before his big performance which he has been practicing for night and day. The added pressure sure did not help as he blows his big moment. Trashing the piano so that the police see he is a loose cannon does not make him seem any less suspicious to the police.
  As the killer gets more victims it is Jess who ends up in the house for the climax. A phone tap makes it so the police can call and tell her the call is coming from the other phone in the house. Things get crazy from there with the classic finding of the friends dead. Jess is our final girl and the police arrive well after the action is over. Of course the audience also does not really see all the action which is a real disappointment. The police headed by Lt. Fuller (John Saxon) and the ending are truly dreadful, it would seem they have no procedures at all in their department. The film ends with them leaving the house and then us hearing the killer chattering about upstairs. They did not even search the house! I know they thought that the killer was already taken care of but since two people are still missing wouldn't you still search the place top to bottom. I guess those bodies up in the attic are going to have to start stinking before they are found.
  Over all I was a very disappointed with this film. In most of the movies so far, even the bad ones there is some kind of back story about why the killer is the killer. What are his motivations and usually it has something to do with Santa fucking someone, or a relative being killed on Christmas. Here though nothing, just a psychopath engaged in a killing spree. No one knows why and it seems no one cares either. There was nothing wrong with the characters reactions to the situation and the film overall was not poorly constructed. It just was missing the killer story, not to mention the killer is never really seen. There is the strangeness of the phone voices sometimes sounding male and sometimes female but it just is not enough to keep the tension. The acting is fine if a bit cartoonish at times. Mrs Mac in particular is more of a caricature then a character. Don't get me wrong there is something here, Hussey was great as Jesse and Kidder plays mean drunk really well. Over all though I could have skipped this film and been alright with that, it is really middle of the road horror.
Rating (4.7) 5.0 and up are recommended, some more recommended than others.

Offspring (2009) Horror Cannibals

Offspring (2009) - How is it that Soresport Movies ends up with so many cannibal movies. You would think that in the thousands of films at our disposal that these would be few and far between. In this case it was all luck, picked up in a discount bin and filed away in giant books of DVDs Offspring was chosen completely by chance, a dice roll to be more specific. Sometimes when we just want to review something but do not know what to choose we just roll some 20 sided dice and let chance decide. So was Offspring a lucky choice, a movie of worth, well I guess that is what this review is all about.
Deep in the woods of Maine for more than 160 years there have been nomadic tribes of feral people just looking for a cave to sleep in and a bite to eat. Because we civilized humans have been encroaching on their habitat these feral nomads have taken the opportunity to get that bite to eat at our expense. Picking through our garbage like raccoons in the night? Ransacking our vacation homes for can goods? No, littering the countryside with our corpses as they kill and eat us. That is the premise and by golly this idea will be explored to the gore filled fullest.
To set it up we get the early kill we need to understand how vicious these people are. A drunk woman named Gloria (T.J. Graye) comes home, there is no way she should have been driving in her car with how much she staggered when she got out of it. A belligerent drunk Gloria yells for the babysitter when entering the wide open front door of her house. To her surprise the babysitter is in the kitchen, well it wasn't a surprise that she was in the kitchen really, it was a surprise that she was dead in the kitchen being eaten by cannibal children. Her alcohol fogged mind slowly comprehended what was going on and she turned to see another cannibal with the parts of her baby in a plastic bag. Yeah those cannibal children are a nasty ( hungry) bunch.
A quick introduction of the characters before we get into the bulk of the story. Computer game programmers Amy (Amy Hargreaves) and David Halbard (Andrew Elvis Miller) live and work in their home in the woods. They are a happy couple with a little baby named Melissa. They talk about being visited by their friend Claire (Ahna Tessler) and her son Luke (Tommy Nelson) who after being abandoned by her scumbag, financial manager husband need to get away from possibly being tracked down by the abusive lout. He also is a criminal like all those Wall St. types just in case being an abuser is not enough. They are coming for some quiet time in the woods and they will get part of that. Steven being a fucking thief he is also misogynist and all around asshole when he dies you are expected to feel good. Played with a spite filled gleam in his eye by Erick Kastel you do not even have to hate him for his implied financial crisis connection. You can hate him for just being a woman hating and abusing douche bag. Did I mention he was an alcoholic? Now that is just piling on.
He does serve a role though beyond being a driving force in bringing Luke and Claire to Maine. He is a counter evil to the cannibals. They are feral hunters who just happen to hunt humans. Predators who seek the easiest prey, most certainly dangerous but for reason outside of good or evil. Steven on the other hand shows how you don't have to be feral to be a predator. His personality was shown very well in a scene of him driving his Porsche to Maine to track down Claire. He stops to pick up this college girl who is hitching to Portland she is friendly and nice, but he is suggestive and cold. When she sees him drinking while driving she wants out. There is this dialog where he tries to convince her to be his guide in getting to hi upstate location even though she is not heading anywhere near there. He phrases it as an invitation with sexual possibilities but when she balks he plays it off as not that. She insists on getting out so without slowing down he tells her to get out of the car with a seriousness that is intimidating. Then he does what this kind of asswipe needs to do, to show control over the woman. He makes her throw her backpack out the window before he will stop. She is reluctant but sees it as the only way out so she lifts it with both hands to chuck it. As she does he takes a long firm feel of her breast. At least he only takes it that far but the girl is definitely feeling like she dodged a bullet when she got out of that car.
The remaining characters are the old retired cop George Chandler (Art Hindle) who was on the job the last time the feral tribe came through town years before. He is recruited by the local cops to help in tracking them down. Is expertise consists of not stopping them before they moved on the first time so it is surprising that he can be any help this time. Then there are the Cannibals lead by Woman (Pollyanna McIntosh) who no doubt got her role in the more acclaimed "The Woman" from her performance here. She brings a fire to the role of the woman in this film. I did not quite get why it was a matriarchal society since her male counterpart at least in age seemed more physically superior. It may be that they wanted a counter to the strong male roles already in the film. Whatever the reason she is menacing and able to lead. The kids are somewhat interchangeable as the tribe with the exception of the blond, maybe called First Stolen? Maybe Girl, I am not sure.
The plot is simple enough, this group of fine young cannibals attacks the home of David and Amy, there is killing and capture. Fleeing with baby Melissa are Claire and Luke. They hide in the wood in a tree house but when they see one of their friends being taken to the cannibal cave Claire heads out to save the day. At the same time Stephen arrives at the house and is run off by the crazy cannibal children. Drunk and belligerent he runs right into the police and George who are hot on the trail of the tribe. The rest plays out in a sluggish and standard survival movie way. Who will survive by fighting off the cannibals? Will Luke and the baby find help? Will the old cop still have what it takes to deal with the threat? Will a horror movie ever end without first setting up for a sequel?
Thoughts on this movie are these: It is a hard premise to sell. In a 160 years a group of survivors from a shipwreck went from being a civilized group to no more than cannibalistic cavemen? They mostly lost their language and apparently the ability to act human really? 160 years ago my could have been your great grandparents, so that would mean that living in the woods caused your grandparents to become cannibals, to not teach language to the next generation and thus your parents just have half words and grunts, they are possible eaten by their children because there was no obvious maternal caring in the tribe. No I just don't buy it, it is not a sound theory. Maybe the writer could explain it. What I did like about the movie were some of the characters and the wonderful gore. It was bloody and gruesome even though the film itself is just mediocre. Art Hindle was great a veteran actor in the horror genre with parts in some well known films like Black Christmas, the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and The Brood. Actress Amy Hargreaves gets a Soresport point for appearing in the best Edward Furlong movie ever as Kimberley in Brainscan (1994).
So I am barely going to recommend this film but it is truly a borderline call. You may just hate it for its stupid premise and ridiculous cannibals, or like me really enjoy the blood and guts of it and appreciate the writing of the character Steven. I normally don't feel so much venom for a movie character as I do for him.
Rating (5.0) movies rated 5.0 up to 10 are recommended on this blog.