THE NESTING (1981)
Directed by Armand Weston
Warner Brothers VHS
Reviewed 11.10.05
Review by Joseph A. Ziemba

THE FILM
I thought I had problems. Get a load of Lauren Cochran. On top of the agoraphobia (pipe down fellas, it's not what you think), she also suffers from writer's block and erotic night terrors. Next stop: Baggage Claim, Terminal B. For boring.

The Nesting is another stellar example of why no horror film should ever exceed 90 minutes in length. Porn director Armand Weston makes his sole excursion into straight-land via horror (dang, this has to be a trend!), shellacking the audience with nearly 110 minutes of uneven disinterest in the process. Or maybe it's just me. Surely somebody out there dreams of spending an evening with a bitchy neurotic as she walks around a farm house for two hours. C'mon, don't be shy.

Lauren Cochran is a big city novelist, currently suffering from a fear of going outside and some major writer's block ("I'm sick, but I'm not retarded"). Dr. Therapist decides on a trip to the country. Lauren and her cheeseball friend, Mark, take a visit out to the sticks, rent an old house from John Carradine (on screen for a whole 45 seconds), and start to get settled. This fantasy land called “the country” is a mysterious place. Need a window fixed? Sorry, lady; "This ain't the big city!" Looking for a shoulder to cry on? Forget it, handymen just want your bod. After groping herself nude in front of a mirror, Lauren has the first of several sweaty dreams, leading her to believe that the house might be haunted. What else? Well, the house also appeared on the cover of her latest novel, The Nesting, but get this...SHE'S NEVER BEEN THERE BEFORE! Or has she? It all leads up to a couple of excellent, disturbing climax sequences, sadly out of place in a sea of boring talk.

At the core of The Nesting is a semi-interesting mystery with a lot of potential for creeps. It's a ghost story for adults, peppered with violence (scythe fever!) and unhinged situations. The problem lies in the delivery. Pedestrian direction and vague script jumps do little to help the shoddy production values (ridiculous sound effects, terrible ADR recording, music from that Brady Bunch story arc in Hawaii), which are at a disadvantage from the get go. Then the padding gets piled on. Lauren gets even more annoying. The handful of capable scares are surrounded by endless monologues, delivered by characters who are slightly less interesting than a bar of soap. Those country bumpkins were right. This sure ain't the big city.

AUDIO AND VIDEO
Another film from the black hole. Dark, dark, dark. Muddy, muddy, muddy. We're not talking Humongous bad, but it was still a little frustrating at times. The print itself was in good shape and the mono sound was nice and thick.

EXTRAS
Of course not. The tape was almost filled.

FINAL THOUGHTS
A spark of spooky goodness resides somewhere in The Nesting, but good luck finding it. I wouldn't recommend sitting through this one unless there's a fontoon of nothing going on. Even then...

Keys on the fritz


A time to reflect


Hit the book


The seeps