The Nesting

The main character goes from a seemingly likable character to very rude and pushy, which gets someone killed after her guilt-tripping pushiness puts them in a precarious position--literally. But what's her reaction? To start her pushiness up again and insisting someone else stick their neck out like the previous guy. Look, from our side, we see what she sees, but for her to instantly insist on the paranormal to doctors and scientists when she's clearly disturbed to begin with is hard to accept. Her going to an old, decrepit, poorly lit house to write and live when she's dealing with irrational mental issues likewise strains credulity. She also expects the man whose love she doesn't return to drop everything at a moment's notice to basically help her despite her insistence on being there in the first place. She came across as entitled and used to getting her way even when things made no sense.

The story poorly set up the conditions for her to be under in the first place. It would have made more sense if she'd come to live there because she had no choice, like maybe she'd been evicted and got the house as an inheritance and had nowhere else to live--something. And she stays in the house despite the hauntings when she clearly doesn't have to. The whole story is forced.

S/N: Her facial expressions when under stress and/or afraid are also unpleasant to look at, particularly centered around her mouth. I really don't mean to be rude, but I didn't like looking at her.

An agoraphobic writer gets a house in the country which turns out to be haunted. That's a great set up to a movie. You have a character who's scared to leave their house being stuck there with things even more terrifying than what awaits them outdoors. Unfortunately, there were times I almost forgot the heroine had this affliction, because she sure seems to get over it whenever the plot calls for her to and there aren't enough scares to make this slow burning, overlong movie very interesting.

Lauren Cochran (Robin Groves) is an agoraphobic novelist who leaves the hustle of the bustle of the city to rent an isolated house in the country, where she hopes to concentrate on her next book. Fat chance, for soon after arriving, the writer suffers a series of terrifying visions that lead her to suspect that the place is haunted. She's correct, of course: her new abode, a whorehouse during the war, was the site of a terrible, bloody massacre, and now the spooks want revenge!

For a film about a haunted brothel, by a film-maker best known for X-rated 'roughie' porn, The Nesting is surprisingly less exploitative than one might expect, taking a comparatively reserved approach that concentrates more on delivering atmosphere and scares than simple shock value.

To director Armand Weston's credit, the result isn't all that bad, with an intriguing basic plot, reasonable central performances, and one or two well constructed death scenes that benefit from the sparse but effective use of gore (the demise of a nasty hick at the hands of a sickle wielding Lauren is especially fun); but although the finished product ain't a total disaster, it's not a complete success either, suffering from a poorly developed script in desperate need of judicious pruning (the film is way overlong at 102 minutes!), a couple of irritating characters (most notably, Lauren's wise-cracking boyfriend Mark), some blatant silliness that should have been fixed before filming commenced (how the hell does Lauren's self-help tape know the layout of her apartment?), and a daft ending that just doesn't know when to quit.

It's a shame, because one can't help but feel that with such a salacious premise, the whole affair is something of a wasted opportunity: if Weston had stayed true to himself by allowing his film to be even half as depraved as his X-rated output, The Nesting would have been a far more satisfying film—a sleaze fan's idea of heaven instead of a fairly entertaining, but ultimately forgettable ghost story.

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

The Nesting is an open-ended supernatural thriller featuring a convincingly neurotic writer with a bad case of agoraphobia (among other things) who decides to rent a house she finds out in the country that looks suspiciously like the one featured on one of her book covers. At times the film is a reasonably intelligent thriller but it has a tendency to err on the side of goofiness. Many of the characters, despite being likable, are incredibly over the top (the Colonel, handyman Frank, etc) and quite often characters are brought into a scene solely to die because there aren't enough victims on-hand.

The film's ambiguity is largely owed to the fact that the ghost scenes only seem tooccur when the writer is nearby and the others seem to die right after the encounter. That and a later reference would almost suggest that the thing could have been in her head although the attacks look like they're being carried out by an invisible, supernatural assailant.

The writer's character is relatively dull, as are her two apparent romantic interests. Other characters are humorously colorful and bring a lot more to the production but the protagonist really seems to exist to do little other than unconvincingly act scared by various phenomena (oddly not done as well as the agoraphobia, but clever camera-work helped with that) and to unravel a mystery that never quite gets compelling.

An agoraphobic writer somehow gets enough control of her issues to drive up a secluded country estate where she can rest and get some writing done only to find out it used to be a whorehouse and the scene of a few brutal murders. Naturally, the ghosts begin calling to her, but can she be trusted?

The Nesting has its heart in the right place and, perhaps, with a less annoying protagonist, it could have worked better than it does, but the simple fact of the matter is that no one wants to spend nearly 2 hours with someone this whiny. I can't tell if it was the writing or the actress, but she got on my nerves. The house location is really impressive and there's some mood to be milked from that, but not many of the scares land and it feels like it takes forever to get going. Still, it's not badly made and worth a watch.