“One of the most controversial films to emerge from Spain, Black Brood attempts to show the feelings and beliefs of a terrorist group from the inside. The central group in the film is a family of right-wing thugs (masquerading as a church choir) whose aim is to disrupt and possibly kill political rivals. They are led by a steely, disciplinarian mother-figure (a kind of Bloody Mama) and include a young boy who is slowly drawn into the game by its promise of excitement and even sexual adventure; it is his terrible act of murdering his girlfriend which is made to symbolize the tragedy of Spain and its lost generation. Made by the team who produced Poachers and directed by the scriptwriter of Long Vacations of 1936 and Poachers, it sustains its mood of suppressed violence and hatred without showing too much of it explicitly; it communicates the hot, turbulent surface of Spanish society to a remarkable degree.”