Film

The Brood

Name: The Brood
Genre: Horror, Science Fiction
Released: 1979
Cast: Oliver Reed, Samantha Eggar, Art Hindle, Henry Beckman, Nuala Fitzgerald

David Cronenberg's most autobiographical film turns a bitter divorce into something clinical and monstrous. Oliver Reed's fringe therapist encourages patients to physicalise their rage; Samantha Eggar's Nola takes that literally, with horrifying results for anyone who's wronged her. It's cold, slow-building, and genuinely upsetting rather than jump-scary — a psychodrama that happens to have small deformed killers in snowsuits. For anyone who wants their horror to actually mean something.

TMDb rating

6.7

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Rosemary's Baby1968

Polanski's paranoid classic shares The Brood's obsession with institutions, doctors who claim to know best, and a woman whose body becomes a battleground she can't control. The gold standard for horror about pregnancy and powerlessness.

But Slow by modern standards, and its off-screen horrors will feel tame if you want something visceral.

Possession1981

Andrzej Żuławski's fever-dream of a collapsing marriage turns emotional devastation into full-blown monster movie, with Isabelle Adjani giving one of the most unhinged performances ever filmed. The Brood's hysterical, maximalist cousin.

But Deliberately overwrought and exhausting — subtlety isn't on the menu, and some will find it simply too much.

The Babadook2014

A grieving single mother's exhaustion and rage curdle into something that might be a monster or might be her own mind — the clearest modern descendant of Cronenberg's idea that unprocessed feeling doesn't just vanish.

But Its restraint and metaphor-heavy approach can feel like a slow burn if you're after more traditional scares.

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Kramer vs. Kramer1979

Released the same year and drawn from the same well: Cronenberg wrote The Brood during his own custody battle, and this Oscar-winning drama covers identical ground — a marriage ending, a child caught between warring parents — with zero monsters.

It's the film The Brood is secretly remaking without the rage-children, and seeing the real anguish underneath the metaphor makes Cronenberg's monsters land even harder in retrospect.

But A prestige courtroom-adjacent drama with no genre elements whatsoever — if you came for horror, this offers none.

Videodrome1983

Cronenberg's own follow-up swaps custody battles for television signals but keeps the flesh-warping paranoia and the sense that ideas can physically infect you. Essential if The Brood left you hungry for more of his nightmare logic.

But Even stranger and more plotless than The Brood — it prioritises imagery and dread over coherence.

The Fly1986

Cronenberg's most emotionally direct body horror, and his most accessible — a tragic romance where love and disease are the same slow transformation. A gentler entry point into his obsessions.

But Gorier and more effects-driven than The Brood; some of its horror is visceral rather than psychological.

Hereditary2018

Ari Aster's breakout treats inherited trauma and grief with the same clinical dread The Brood brings to divorce, building to a finale that's less jump-scare than slow-motion inevitability.

But Its final act tips into more overtly supernatural territory than The Brood ever does.

Antichrist2009

Lars von Trier turns grief and marital breakdown into something as punishing and physical as anything Cronenberg imagined, with therapy itself cast as the villain — much like Dr. Raglan's methods.

But Genuinely brutal and misanthropic; this is one of the hardest watches on this whole list.

Repulsion1965

Polanski's earlier study of a woman's psyche disintegrating in isolation shares The Brood's clinical camera and its refusal to look away from breakdown as body horror before body horror had a name.

But Almost entirely interior and quiet — patient viewers only; nothing here jumps out at you.

Dead Ringers1988

Cronenberg again, with Jeremy Irons doubled as twin gynecologists whose codependence spirals into something as intimate and disturbing as Nola's rage. Proof this director never stopped mining the body for psychological horror.

But Even more slow-burn and dialogue-heavy than The Brood — the horror here is almost entirely psychological.

Eyes Without a Face1960

Cronenberg has cited this cold, clinical French classic as an ancestor of body horror — a doctor obsessed with fixing damage through monstrous means, filmed with the same eerie, matter-of-fact detachment The Brood applies to its own atrocities.

Decades before Dr. Raglan, this film gave horror its template for the well-meaning doctor whose cure is worse than the disease, shot with a hushed, poetic dread that still unsettles.

But Black-and-white, in French, and slower — its shocks are quiet rather than visceral, which can feel like a different genre entirely.

It's Alive1974no page yet

Larry Cohen's drive-in creature feature takes the exact same fear at The Brood's core — that your own child might be a monster you created — and plays it as pulpy B-movie horror instead of arthouse dread.

A killer-baby movie that's far trashier and more fun than it sounds, but underneath the schlock is the same anxious question about parenthood and monstrosity that Cronenberg treats so seriously.

But Cheap effects and a grindhouse sensibility — if you want The Brood's seriousness, this will feel like a joke by comparison.