The Bewailing

This movie was a terrible mess. The cover is very misleading, nothing even close happens in this too long, boring, badly acted and horrorless movie. Worst thing was the kid, after 20000 times "mommy" I was very willing to slap her silly. Avoid this waste of time.

While it doesn't look or feel like some of the low budget movies usually do, it just goes on way too long. They tried to throw in some unnecessary drama, and dragged on a lot of the rest. 30 minutes easily could have been cut without losing anything. The acting wasn't great but wasn't terrible. Had some creepy/gross parts, but I would not watch it again.

...and clearly not by humans who have ever taken part in doing human things. I mean, who puts their child in therapy because she's 'making up' her stomach aches before taking her to a doctor?

The dialogue is painfully cliched, stilted, and just plain bad. The actors (even Dee Wallace) can't do anything to lift it up out of the garbage. While the director clearly thinks he's doing sublime work, too many of the shots are boring and lack the tension that was clearly the aim. There's a spoiler scene in the opening that pretty much takes away all potential build-up to creepiness, and ruins what could have been an all-right slow burn reveal.

Between the bad acting and the worse dialogue, I had no one that I could sympathize with. The characters were pretty unlikeable, whether they were body snatched or not.

And it was boring. The movie took forever, and not in any type of good way. If what another reviewer said is true that this is two separate stories that were edited together, it really shows. And it manages to do neither of them well. Or even good.

I have seen plenty of alien/monster horror movies and some have been good and others remarkably bad.

The movie starts of well with good effects but the overall story and poor casting of talentless characters let this film down.

The film is about a girl who buys a stuffed teddy bear not knowing a horrifying creature(or insect) has made a home inside it. As you've guessed it, the girl brings the teddy bear to her home and all hell ensues.

The title of the movie "The Nest" is apt, it shows that instinct of the creature it portrays. Blue Monkey (1987), Slugs(1988), The Nest(1988), Ticks(1993), They Nest(2000) are similar movies.

Granted, I was lured in to watching the 2021 movie "The Nest" (aka "The Bewailing") given the movie's rather interesting cover/poster, and also because it was a horror movie that I hadn't already seen.

But "The Nest" from writer Jennifer Trudrung and director James Suttles just proved to be a very generic and mundane foray into the creepy crawlers subgenre of the horror genre. Yeah, "The Nest" doesn't really deliver much of anything, aside from a whole lot of nothing happening. And you need to venture about 1 hour and 12 minutes into the movie before it starts becoming mildly interesting, but by that time it was just too little, too late.

Sure, the concept idea behind "The Nest" is interesting, and there definitely is potential for something truly entertaining and disturbing here. But director James Suttles only managed to deliver a sub-par movie here.

While I managed to sit through the entire ordeal, I must admit that I was tempted to get up and walk out on it a couple of times along the way. Why? Well, simply because not enough of anything worthwhile was happening throughout the majority of the movie. And by the time director James Suttles opted to amp up the events, then it was just simply too late.

The acting in the movie was adequate, though it was clear that the actors and actresses were struggling with a sub-par script and storyline. And it didn't really help the movie much that the characters were mostly bland and lacking in-depth personalities.

Sure, they had an okay ensemble of actors and actresses on the cast list here, with even Dee Wallace being here. However, even someone as iconic as her could do only so little to salvage the movie.

The movie's title, "The Nest", sort of is very unfitting for the movie. I would assume that there would have been additional bugs in order for it to be a nest. And especially so since the movie's cover portrayed a heap of insects. But instead I found myself treated to seeing a single insect, and it only popped up at 72 minutes into the ordeal. And it wasn't even worth the wait, very anti-climatic.

It should be said though that the visuals with the teddy bear with the enlarged eyes definitely worked well. Because that teddy bear certainly had something insect-like going on, and I liked that. And the effects when it opened up its belly to unleash the insect inside, definitely also looked good, especially with the good and the sticky residue.

For a horror movie then "The Nest" just failed to be an outstanding, much less being an overly memorable and entertaining horror movie. It simply proved too boring and uneventful, and the movie will just simply slip away into the mists of oblivion without having left any type of lasting impression on me.

I was rather disappointed with this movie, especially since I was looking forward to seeing it, given the movie's cover and the fact that Dee Wallace was in it.

I am rating "The Nest" a rather generous four out of ten stars.