******SPOILERS****** "The Bloody Brood" is a far better movie despite of how it's been packaged, something like "Psycho Beatnik Killers". It's a fairly good story about a thrill killing by two unstable as well as homicidal lunatics much like the infamous case back in Chicago in 1924 of Leopold & Loeb. The two thrill killers who murdered a young 14 year-old boy for kicks as well as trying to commit and get away with the perfect crime.

Nico, Peter Falk, is a small time hood who supplies drugs to clubs that are patronized by mostly Beatnik types. Nico at the same time likes to hang out in the clubs to talk wisdom and philosophy to an admiring group of Beatnik's. The Beatnik's think that Nico is not only super cool but a genius as well. Nico's sidekick Francis, Ron Hartmann, is a disgruntled director of commercials on TV who feels that the world doesn't see and appreciate his great talent as a film-maker. Francis feels that The only one who's hip enough to see his great cinematic skills is non-other then the ultra-cool and super intelligent Nico.

One evening at the club "The Diggs" as Nico was talking about the world situation and how screwed up it's because men like him aren't in charge old man Diogenis collapsed and fell dead. Nico is fascinated by Diogenis' death thinking that someone would die and then be totally forgotten like he never existed at all? All of a sudden an idea hit Nico about getting a real kick or high. Why not kill some nobody who'll never be missed!

Later that night at a party at a friends apartment a messenger boy Roy, Bill Kowalchuk, arrives with a package and Nico sees in the messenger boy the nobody that he was looking for. Nico invites Roy into the party and gives him a hamburger to munch on thats laced with ground. Later Roy later fell ill and died of internal bleeding. There's one thing about Roy that Nico's gargantuan brain overlooked, Roy had a brother Cliff, Jack Betts, and that would turn out to be Nico's undoing. Cliff would leave no stone unturned until he found and then brought those that murdered his kid brother Roy to justice.

What I liked about the movie is that it didn't put the Beatnik's in a bad light like you were led to believe by it's advertisements. Nico and his weak willed accomplice Francis were anything but Beatnik's but criminals and sick malcontents who used the unsuspecting as well as innocent Beatnik's for their own personal gains.

Jack Betts was very good as Roy's big brother getting to the bottom of the matter and finding out who killed him. Barbara Lord as Ellie more then personified the kind of young people who fell into the beat generation back in the 1950's because of their alienation from their families as well as from society. Also effective in the movie was Nico's two drug suppliers Studs, Bill Bryden, and Weasel, Mitchell Zenon, who got too greedy and had to be terminated by Nico's boss Mr. Stephanex, Rolf Golstan. In the end Studs and Weasel ended up terminating Nico.

But the best acting of all in the movie was that of Peter Falk. Falk at that time, 1959, in his career looked so much like one of todays top culinary stars of the Food Network Emeril Lagasse. If Emeril Lagasse were to kill someone with a hamburger it wouldn't be because he put ground glass in it, it would be because he packed it with too much salt and spices.

The first Canadian exploitation film ever made, with a way young Peter Falk playing a beatnik-gangster-mole who feeds a delivery boy 'a hamburger full of ground glass' - that phrase becomes a mantra as the Wonderbread protagonist-come-lately sleuths through the shocking and unseen world of the young bohemian! The beatniks are not shown as evil, they're just stupid dupes - that's nice. They're also viewed at a long arms-length via our virtuous heroes (there's also a girl, who is saved from an interesting life by mister blowdry). "The Mask" is later and greater Roffman, though it too depicts subcultural life as immoral and despicable while it cashes in on its allure. But why do ya think they call it 'exploitation'? It's got some energy, it's got Peter Falk, and it's competently shot when it's indoors. What's "Canadian" about this movie, I hear the tenured laggards inquire? Here's what's Canadian about it: it looks like Brits trying to look American only it's whiter than either.