The Brood (1979) Video Review & Discussion

Started by Vektdrome Video, December 15, 2021, 07:44:45 PM

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Vektdrome Video

A discussion & review of the therapeutically terrifying Cronenberg horror classic The Brood (1979) hosted by Mike Ebright & Jake Sedell!

:waving: Watch it now on the Vektdrome Video YouTube channel! :waving:

Please let me know what you think of the review if you decide to watch it, feedback is really important to me so if you want to share your thoughts/opinions on it I'd really appreciate it.

Also if you'd like to discuss the film further on here I would be more than happy to!  :-D

WorldForgot

Just from the thumbnail I get the feeling y'all are fans of RedLetterMedia/Half-in-the-Bag?
Will watch imminently. Digesting some pizza first, though.

Jeremy Blackman

I edited the size tags out of your post (it looked too spammy), but otherwise this is cool.  :yabbse-thumbup:

Vektdrome Video

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on December 15, 2021, 08:09:39 PM
I edited the size tags out of your post (it looked too spammy), but otherwise this is cool.  :yabbse-thumbup:
Thanks! Yeah first time using this site so I'm still learning how to use everything, but I think it's a really neat place! Never knew an old-school kind of forum for film like this was something that still existed. Nonetheless I'm happy to find this place :D 

Jeremy Blackman


WorldForgot

Dig the vibe, and the three camera set up works well. No notes other than it's kinda long so it might help some viewers if you had like timecoded 'parts' or themed segments noted in the description. Not a necessity but might help organize the video or keep some others interested.

Police Story's such a slap-a-rooni. Sure y'all will enjoy that one ~

Speaking of Police Stories, in Bruno Dumont's thread I found it serendipitous that Cronenberg was the Jury Prez presiding over L'humanité's winning. That film largely functions as a warped procedural. I bring this up because something you two orbit around in this video is both the "silliness" of some of the Brood's attacks (and their appearance) as well as the "detour" of the autopsy.

Detour's a good word for it, I think, and especially in relation to what Cronenberg must have picked up on regarding Dumont's frequency of warping tropes.

In a sense by veering off the expected - or given - path of the film's true through-line, we're allowed a glimpse into its wider scope. That is where Cronenberg's statement is allowed to be as loud as the symbolism because it implicates the expectation of form within its thematic thesis. Is our repression inhumane, in the way the Brood is? What alien anatomy can we reproduce? It creates just enough resistance against the family-crisis narrative (within an understood procedural trope) for something to click perhaps on what other-wordliness we impose on ourselves, just as the filmmaker can impose on our expectations.

Lolerz at Chrimbus special Dee Vee. I always thought it was the other way around and that Tim & Eric wanted to highlight those uncanny faces from The Brood, haha. Didn't know Don Post's name until I watched your vid, and I've been a fan of Halloween I and III for years! Cool to finally know what's what there! 

Something I'm always impressed by iz how consistent Cronenberg's approach to his theses have been even at smaller budgets and early in his career. Shivers and The Brood are just as accomplished as Videodrome and Crash, although they are jagged and scrappy. And personally I like Shivers and The Brood more than Scanners, in-part because of how they respect the B-Movie sensibility without sacrificing Cronenberg's academic mindset. Monster movies about humans. Mad respect to the pervert sage.

Vektdrome Video

Quote from: WorldForgot on December 15, 2021, 11:03:00 PM
Dig the vibe, and the three camera set up works well. No notes other than it's kinda long so it might help some viewers if you had like timecoded 'parts' or themed segments noted in the description. Not a necessity but might help organize the video or keep some others interested.

Police Story's such a slap-a-rooni. Sure y'all will enjoy that one ~

Speaking of Police Stories, in Bruno Dumont's thread I found it serendipitous that Cronenberg was the Jury Prez presiding over L'humanité's winning. That film largely functions as a warped procedural. I bring this up because something you two orbit around in this video is both the "silliness" of some of the Brood's attacks (and their appearance) as well as the "detour" of the autopsy.

Detour's a good word for it, I think, and especially in relation to what Cronenberg must have picked up on regarding Dumont's frequency of warping tropes.

In a sense by veering off the expected - or given - path of the film's true through-line, we're allowed a glimpse into its wider scope. That is where Cronenberg's statement is allowed to be as loud as the symbolism because it implicates the expectation of form within its thematic thesis. Is our repression inhumane, in the way the Brood is? What alien anatomy can we reproduce? It creates just enough resistance against the family-crisis narrative (within an understood procedural trope) for something to click perhaps on what other-wordliness we impose on ourselves, just as the filmmaker can impose on our expectations.

Lolerz at Chrimbus special Dee Vee. I always thought it was the other way around and that Tim & Eric wanted to highlight those uncanny faces from The Brood, haha. Didn't know Don Post's name until I watched your vid, and I've been a fan of Halloween I and III for years! Cool to finally know what's what there! 

Something I'm always impressed by iz how consistent Cronenberg's approach to his theses have been even at smaller budgets and early in his career. Shivers and The Brood are just as accomplished as Videodrome and Crash, although they are jagged and scrappy. And personally I like Shivers and The Brood more than Scanners, in-part because of how they respect the B-Movie sensibility without sacrificing Cronenberg's academic mindset. Monster movies about humans. Mad respect to the pervert sage.
I really appreciate your thoughts and the fact you took the time to write this out, means a lot to me :) Cronenberg is my favorite director and I feel as thought I enjoy/appreciate this film more than I gave it credit for in the video. I really do love this film, especially the tension/struggle of the relationship of Frank, Nola, and Raglan in the context of who gets custody of candy/their marriage. I feel like that was the best stuff in the film and it's what kept me going more while watching it than the mystery of who/what the brood children are. I think the reason it didn't come off as though I liked it that much was because Mike was more focused on the things he didn't enjoy (probably because he didn't like it as much as me) so we tended to talk and spend more time on those points. In a cut moment from the video we talked about how we'd rank this movie in comparison to his others and I said that it might even be a top 5 film of his for me (most likely hovering closely around the 6th place mark, tied with 5th) and I really  think it's a wholly unique and engaging movie. Despite what I said about the Brood children's appearance, I definitely think it can be looked past and the movie can still be enjoyed 1000% percent to me no matter how goofy they may look because of how well almost every other aspect of the film is pulled off.

Thanks for the compliments on the channel's style and our setup! We only had one tripod at the time so we had to place the other camera on makeshift TV dinner table tripods balancing the phones on stacks of DVDs haha. But now we have two more so next time it'll be a lot better, along with hopefully better audio quality as we did have a nice mic recording audio in-between us out of frame. For whatever reason the audio recording only captured the first 10 minutes so we had to use the audio from the two-shot camera but it still sounded fine enough. I'm certainly going to add some chapters to this video along with the next episode and I definitely know the length of the episode isn't for everyone. I tried to cut down on the running time as much as I could where I could, but I didn't want to exclude too much of what we said. The next time around will look/be a lot better and hopefully I won't be as nervous because I was pretty anxious this episode being the first time and all. I said a lot of "likes" and "ums" and tended to ramble a bit too long or go to off topic (which I tried to fix with editing as best I could). Next episode all around should be a lot smoother and I'm excited to talk about a film I haven't seen before. OH! And also the lighting WILL be fixed as I saw how the light coming through the windows caused the wide shot camera to go out of focused numerous times.
- Jake

WorldForgot

The passion really shows! Lean in to the personal style you two share & cherish, any film nerds interested in this stuff will definitely be understanding of technical kinks. Personally I don't mind this length of YouTube video, and actually prefer it to podcasts because of how you can incorporate visuals. The auto-focus didn't bother me too much, and didn't even notice the sound stuff!

That's interesting about what you cut out! In a way I wonder if that's something you could maybe get creative with as you shape what the channel becomes? Like obvi it's up to y'all's preference, but seemz to me like ranking within a filmography is already more distinct than just a rating scale. Though I did laugh anytime Dee Vee was on screen ahah. Whichever way you swing it, the insight into your perspective combined with film history or analysis iz what will keep people hooked.

Your consideration of how Cronenberg allows us room to infer dynamics of who "mommy" and "daddy" refer to was great. Kinda funny how decades later he'd literally make a movie about Jung and Freud.