The Brood

The Brood (1979), Unrated Wicked Vision remaster, directed by David Cronenberg, encoded in 10 bit HEVC with AAC sound, including original English theatrical stereo, German stereo dub, two commentary tracks, and subtitles in English and German.

IMDb : https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078908/

Video encoded in two-pass 10 000 kbps x265 10bit with the veryslow preset for archive quality image.

English subtitles OCRed, proofed and corrected. German subtitles and German subtitles for English commentary converted to VobSub and repositioned.

Note : Let's get back to one of my personal favorites, Canadian body horror master David Cronenberg, and his 1979 take on motherhood, divorce, and suppressed rage, steeped in the madness of all the different 70s psychotherapy cults, "primal scream" therapy, and pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo. Apparently inspired by Cronenberg's own divorce and the ensuing custody battle, which ended with Cronenberg travelling to California to pick up his daughter from the psychoanalysis cult his ex-wife had become involved with. Also, as Cronenberg has said, perhaps structurally the most typical horror movie of all his work, with a series of mysterious murders by strange creatures propelling the story forward. Very worth watching, and supremely creepy at times, though the ending might be a little bit flat. Also, very good performances, by Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar in particular.

Frank Carveth is in a custody battle with his wife Nora over their daughter Candice, while Nora is in an experimental psychotherapy institute called Somafree, run by the domineering Dr. Hal Raglan, who has developed a therapy technique called psychoplasmics, through which patients' trauma and rage manifests as external wounds, lesions, and even tumors. Frank discovers his daughter has apparently been mistreated, and blames Nora, while Dr. Raglan insists she wouldn't be capable. As Frank builds his custody case, Nora's parents, and then other people who cause her pain and trauma, are attacked and murdered by strange, elusive creatures, and Frank starts to suspect a connection.

This new Wicked Vision BluRay is quite a good remaster, decent grain, good color and contrast, nice and clean. Sound is also fine. Too bad about no English subtitles for the German commentary track, but the English commentary track is pretty good, at least.

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