8 Horror Movies With Deeper Meanings Than You Realise

It's been long considered that David Cronenberg's The Fly is a representation of the fear of ageing and decay, as well as a metaphor for AIDS and disease taking toll on a body - but far less discussed is his earlier work, The Brood. Telling the tale of a woman, Nola, that undergoes a strange psychological technique to deal with her repressed emotions, a series of murders plays out in tandem with her treatment, with the film climaxing in the reveal that physically realised spawns of her rage have grown from the sessions and attack anyone that has wronged her.

With all that going on, it's pretty easy to overlook that her divorce and child custody battle happening in the middle. Nola and her husband's experiences are Cronenberg's own then-recent custody battle brought to life on screen, an outlet in the same vein as Nola's own strange creatures that are born from her emotional conflict. The Brood is Cronenberg's own tiny murderous monster thrown out into the world.

It's a rumination on the difficulties of trying to do the best for a child that might be taken to an environment that isn't safe - one of Cronenberg's fears when sorting the situation out in his own life. The Brood is way more autobiographical than you'd think for this level of horror movie, with Nola even based on his own ex-wife to boot.