The Nesting (1981)

You won't be disappointed!

Undescribable Perfection

That was an excellent one.

Excellent adaptation.

There are plenty of horror movies where the characters don't do what any typical person would do in their situation, but it happens so often with the main character in this movie that it's laughable. John Carradine and Gloria Grahame (her last film) were terrific, but they have very small parts. There were a couple of great death scenes, but they don't make much sense. It was tough for me to make it through this one. Every scene seemed to drag on. It wasn't suspenseful, it was painful. I don't think it was intended to be a B-movie, but it definitely is. If you like them, you may like this.

Not to be confused with the Corman cockroach classic THE NEST, this is semi-effective ghost story. Writer Lauren Cochran (Robin Groves) suffers from agoraphobia and, in a bid to overcome her ailment, she rents a stately mansion in the country from Colonel Lebrun (John Carradine). Turns out the old place used to be a brothel where some prostitutes were murdered after WWII and Cochran has a mysterious connection to the place.Director Armand Weston spent most of his time doing X-rated stuff and this is his only attempt into legit films with mixed results. One on hand, the film benefits from some great atmosphere, thanks mostly to the run down house. There are also several effective ghost attack sequences. On the downside, the film runs way too long (nearly 2 hours) with some overly talky bits that dragggggg. Lead Groves, who reminded me of Patty Duke circa MATCH GAME, is an interesting choice for the lead but she makes the mania look realistic. Former MGM leading lady Gloria Grahame plays the part of the ghost madame and this was her last film.

As far as early '80s haunted house movies go (there were quite a few, most likely thanks to the box office success of 1979's THE AMITYVILLE HORROR), you could do worse. Neurotic mystery novelist Lauren Cochran (Robin Groves) is suffering from the anxiety disorder agoraphobia; meaning she has panic attacks when put in a crowded or unfamiliar environment. Barely able to leave her New York City apartment, she and her doctor decide the best thing for her mental state is a little peace and quiet in a tranquil setting. Lauren, accompanied by her boyfriend Mark (Christopher Loomis), decides to rent a large house out in the country so she can recover from her condition and begin work on her next novel. Strangely, the large, lakeside home she is compelled to rent looks almost identical to the one pictured on the cover of her last novel "The Nesting;" which was illustrated from her own description. Soon after moving in (Mark has to return to NYC, leaving her all alone), she starts suffering from nightmares and starts seeing ghosts lurking around. What's Lauren's connection to the house and why are the murderous spirits that occupy the place only killing select victims? I noticed skimming through the reviews that some viewers think the first half was stronger than the second. I actually feel the opposite. The first 45 minutes or so were a little shaky and confusing, but I felt the film actually improved and became more interesting during the second and third acts. Thankfully the major plot points are adequately explained with some decent flashbacks. The leading lady is a pretty decent actress, but not quite the sympathetic heroine you'd expect to find in a film like this. The architecture on the house itself is very striking and it makes for a terrific, atmospheric country setting. The horror scenes are adequate, yet not too bloody, and there's some brief nudity and sex also. On the down side, some of the dialogue is awful (especially the supposedly witty lines given to the Mark character at the beginning), the film looks pretty dark, dreary and murky (many scenes are set inside barely lit interiors), there's a visible boom mike and some of the supporting performances are rough.One of the major drawing cards (at least to me) were appearances from prolific character actor/horror cameo king John Carradine and talented and underrated film noir goddess Gloria Grahame, both in small but important co-starring roles. Carradine plays Colonel LeBrun, the wheelchair-bound, sickly owner of the haunted home, while Grahame (who looks astonishingly good for her age and astonishingly good considering she died soon after appearing in this) plays Florinda Costello, the ghostly former brothel madam. Neither has a whole lot of screen time, but do well with what they're given to work with. Fans of either should enjoy their work here. I'd never heard of director Armand Weston before, but it seems like he worked exclusively on X-rated films. He did a fairly good job on this, his only "mainstream" effort.

Typical horror flick: a woman (Robin Groves) goes to an abandoned house to work on a novel, and - bingo! - it turns out to be a haunted house. In this case, it was a brothel during WWII.Now that I'm old enough to think about this, it may or may not be worth noting. "The Nesting" was released (onto video, at least) through Warner Bros. When I was really young, I watched a lot of the old Looney Tunes cartoons - in fact, I still like to watch them whenever possible - and so I quickly familiarized myself with the name "Warner Bros." Well, over the course of my life, I found out that Warner Bros. also released other kinds of movies, among them horror flicks such as "The Exorcist", "The Shining", "The Awakening" and this one (for non-horror, they also released "A Clockwork Orange"). Had I known when I was three and four years old that Warner Bros. released these sorts of movies - particularly "The Shining" - I probably would have asked something like "Why did Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck make that movie where the man makes a scary face?" OK, so that's all flagrant, maybe criminal, digression. And most people would probably never even think about it. It's just that I like to talk about these things. Anyway, it's an OK movie, not anything great, though the house was pretty neat. Also starring John Carradine and Gloria Grahame (in her final role).Still, it's weird to think that from the same source of Sylvester chasing Tweety came a movie about a Devil-possessed girl.