I don't get it....


There are just too many things about this movie that don't make any sense. Samantha Eggar's "children" are supposed to be manifestations of her inner rage, right? How is it that the children formed outside her body? How is it that she could create children without mating with a male? How is it that she only had, say, a dozen children? If i had a baby every time i got mad, i'd have enough to fill up the state of New York! I guess she must've only gotten mad a dozen or so times in her life. And what about Dr. Raglan's first patient at the beginning of the movie, Mike? When his inner rage came out, they were nothing more than sores. Why did he not produce babies like Nola? Whenever i see a movie like this that leaves me with a bunch of questions, i feel cheated. Like i just wasted 2 hours watching it because there are too many things left unexplained.

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Recommend you avoid any and all science fiction/horror movies until you learn to develop an ability knows as "suspension of disbelief." Because there isn't a single one of them in existence that won't leave you with un-answered (if not un-answerable) questions.

This is the part where you angrily reply along the lines of "I have plenty of suspension of disbelief mr. smartass, but this movie is particularly egregious because I just saw it recently!" Save your keystrokes.

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I'm just simply stating that i can't get any enjoyment out of movies with this many unexplained questions. Can you answer the questions i posted originally? If you can I would love to hear them. There has to be a reason for the things that happened in this movie but so far I don't see them.

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If it was a documentary about real events I might be able to answer your questions. The thing is, as this is a piece of fantastical and impossible fiction, the answers simply don't exist. Cronenberg wrote the story, so its possible he could pull some answers out of his ass, if push came to shove. Recommend you seek him out.

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I'm just simply stating that i can't get any enjoyment out of movies with this many unexplained questions.


That's a problem with you, not the film.

I mean, don't you find it absurd that in a movie predominantly about the impact and horrors of child abuse, you're focusing on these irrelevant details? Too many people today confuse nitpicking with valid critique. It isn't, it's obnoxious and rarely substantial. This is an allegorical movie, it is not interested in creating a Tolkien esque mythos. Giving further detail on how The Brood came about would just bog down and distract from the true focus.

and if unanswered questions bother you, than you should probably not venture too far outside the mainstream. Certainly avoid surrealists like Jordowhocky, Bunuel and Lynch, or the works of the French new Wave (especially Godard), or the likes of Andrei Tarkovsky and John Cassavette, who are far more into posing questions than giving answers.

Can you answer the questions i posted originally?


Unless Cronenberg has an IMDB account, no one on here can answer your questions. We can speculate, certainly.

For example, why did Michel not spawn his own brood? Perhaps even these metaphysics are still bound by biology and only females can create them. Maybe Michel's hatred is ultimately too internalized at himself and thus he doesn't create them. Maybe they DID come about and kill his father, but it never comes up on screen because it isn't relevant.

Why only a dozen? It never goes into heavy detail, so a number of possibilities exist. Perhaps there's a limit to how much a person can create regardless of their hatred.

Again, really not that important in what Cronenberg was going for, but there are possible explanations.


"It's just you and me now, sport"-Manhunter

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Yeah, see thats the problem...i dont like to have to "speculate"...i think the writer owes it to his viewers to explain WHY they are seeing what they are seeing....if you cant make any sense out of the movie and nothing has been explained, i consider that BAD writing.....generally i like Cronenberg movies...my favorite one is SHIVERS, which I think is his first one...in SHIVERS, everything you need to know is explained....they were crossing parasites with an aphrodisiac and the experiment went wrong, causing the people to turn into sex fiends...they were trying to develop a parasite that would replace internal organs, as an alternative to transplant...see how that works?..everything is nice and understandable and explained...nothing complicated about it.....and no speculation needs to be made.... now, that's not to say there aren't some tiny details that weren't explained.....that's usually the case with all movies...but i like coming from a movie knowing all of the main details and not being left with a million questions....

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The sense of entitlement is strong with this one.

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Please don't watch films by Kubrick or Lynch. I fear your head might explode like in Scanners.

it rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again

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"And no speculation needs to be made".

No speculation needs to be made here, either. Why would the literal minded and, frankly, absurd questions in the OP be of any concern to anyone?



"facts are stupid things" Ronald Reagan

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How is it that the children formed outside her body?


Psychoplasmics

How is it that she could create children without mating with a male?


Um, because it's not actual human reproduction. How did that part confuse you?

How is it that she only had, say, a dozen children? If i had a baby every time i got mad, i'd have enough to fill up the state of New York!


Because there's a difference between just getting mad/angry and being filled with rage. That's why we have different words for them. Because they mean different things.

Why did he not produce babies like Nola?


His rage wasn't as great. Or maybe only females can actually create life.

Like i just wasted 2 hours watching it because there are too many things left unexplained.


It's all easily explained by just thinking. The director doesn't have to hold the audience's hand for every little thing.

Can't stop the signal.

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I'm sorry, but kind of have to agree with the other responses here. The exact biological details of how this works aren't important, since it's so obviously not medically realistic.

By way of example: There's a movie called 'Shock Treatment' where Stuart Whitman plays a guy who fakes his way into a mental asylum to find out where a fortune is hidden (one of the patients knows). Turns out one of the doctors is trying to find out too, realizes what Whitman is up to and puts him out of commission with regular injections of a paralyzing drug. Boy, do we hear about this drug: the doctor discusses it, we see documentary film of her observing its effects on animals, it gets described again when she she uses it on Whitman, etc. There's nothing so unusual about this drug that it pays off later, like a weird side effect that becomes crucial to the plot or something; the only apparent reason for all of this is to answer the sort of questions you're asking, about exactly how it works, should anyone be curious. Meanwhile the rest of us are sitting through minute after minute of this and thinking "who cares, where's the money?"

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She made drones not human babies they lived off a yoke sack and then dropped dead when it ran out. In a few months at most. They had no navels, and were probably nonsexed.they were not children, if you define children as procreation or reproduction. These were animated tumors that nola grew out of her skin like miles. Possible because she was a hysteric suggestion prone nerotic who responded greatly to a previously unexplored psychological technique called psychophysics. Just as people are greater or lesser susceptible to hypnosis, nola was highly reactive to psychophysics. One of only 3 prodigies that are shown.

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Typos. Moles. Psychoplasmics. My phone auto corrects against my will.

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I don't get it either. How did he not notice before? Why did she lick her children after birth like an animal? It seems like there was supposed to be a film here, it just never really happened. The whole film was a building to its revelation, and to that extent it might have made a good short... unfortunately it was alot longer than 10 minutes.

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She hadn’t undergone psychoplamics before.

Why not lick her children to clean them of amniotic fluid and blood like an animal? The whole thing is sci-fi so Cronenberg can take it wherever he likes, and licking the newborns makes it seem more credible by linking it to existing animal behaviour.

You and the OP seem to be suffering a form of autism.

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