The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds

Definitely a precursor to Texas Chainsaw Massacre and more as well as outside of film with a song: Title, music and Lyrics that influenced The Cramps... How could you go wrong?

Available through Nicolas Winding Refn's site (for free!) "bynwr"

A great analogy for life on the island and the inn is just like neighborhoods and a lot of cities...

Some absolutely witty lines and set ups that caused me to loudly laugh out loud, enjoyed this with wide eyes not sure what was coming next. When I thought I had it, a twist I didn't see coming.

Loved it! Killer Soundtrack for a Killer Movie where every one might just be a...

The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds (1965)

** (out of 4)

Bert Williams plays an undercover cop who tries to bring down some moonshiners working in the Everglades. His cover is blown and he takes off in the alligator swamps trying to survive. He winds up at a hotel in the woods where he thinks he's safe but soon he realizes the horrors that are there.

THE NEST OF THE CUCKOO BIRDS is a film that I first heard about around the time I first got online. It was a lost movie and people debates whether or not it was ever actually completed. A few bits and pieces of promotional material showed up but a print also turned up and was finally shown in 2017. As is the case with a lot of lost films that are found, there's no masterpiece here but the film is certainly an interesting one that manages to hold your attention throughout.

Not only did Williams play the lead role but he also wrote, directed, shot and produced the picture so clearly this is his baby. The film was obviously shot on a very low-budget but I found there to be quite a few things here that were actually good. For starters, Williams perfectly uses the Everglades location and he actually creates a rather good atmosphere. I also thought there were some very effective shots including early on when he has a strange vision of a naked blonde woman. There's also a bizarre murder sequence where editing plays a key role and one can't help but this was the director trying to pull off something like the shower scene in PSYCHO.

I honestly thought the performances were okay as well. Williams certainly wasn't the next Marlon Brando but he had a normal, average look and the cast all seemed like real people, which helped add a certain rawness to the film. Of course, there's not too much happen and a lot of the 82-minute running time is devoted to people sitting around talking. These scenes here are rather boring and there's no doubt that there's not too much of a story but fans of the bizarre will still want to check this out.

I saw this film at the Drive-In, I believe it was The Arrow, when I was 11. The producers invited everyone who showed up free pizza at the end of the film. Both of my parents were in the film. I remember my Dad telling me that they lost a reel of the film when they were shooting in the Everglades which is why the story may not seem to flow very well. They didn't have the budget to re-shoot what they lost.

When I watch a super-low budget, amateur movie like "The Nest of the Cuckoo Birds," I try to view it as if it were an amateur play at the local playhouse. My primary question: Did I enjoy it. The answer here is, yes, I (mostly) enjoyed it.

With that out of the way, the basic story line to "Nest" is pretty clever. (And director Bert Williams does just enough to hold the viewer's interest through to the very end where he ties things together.) The basic story line concerns undercover government revenue agent "Johnson" who has his cover blown and escapes into the everglades to avoid certain death. After an "interesting" encounter with a knife-wielding female, Johnson further escapes to an island housing the titular Cuckoo Bird Inn. The Inn is owned by religious fanatic, Mrs. Pratt, who is accompanied by caretaker, Harold, and Mrs. Pratt's daughter, Lisa. When he arrives, he is the only guest in the Inn. The balance of the film remains concerned with events at the Inn.

Now, if there is a defect here it is in the dialogue, which (not surprisingly) fills up quite a lot of the 1:20ish running time and can get rather sluggish at times. This movie would have suffered nothing by trimming its run time by 10 to 15 minutes. However, there are discernible plot points that move the action along. These center on Johnson's continued "snooping" of the restricted areas of the Inn and its surrounding property (much to the chagrin of Harold and Mrs. Pratt). What he eventually finds indeed qualifies the movie as a "horror" movie, though we get most of that in the last 20 or so minutes of the film.

Florida during the 1960s and early 1970s gave us some really strange gems, including "Two Thousand Maniacs!" (1964) "Miss Leslie's Dolls" (1972) and "Blood Freak" (1972). I will add this to my collection of Sunshine State curios.

If you tell me that a film is extremely rare &/or was lost for decades and miraculously resurfaced or got resurrected, chances are that this will equate to some immediate interest. This one turned out to not ultimately work as a mystery thriller, but still proved to be worth a look. Just have to add that if the character Harold's beard was fake, it has to have been one of the worst in the history of makeup, but if it was real that would be even more disturbing.