The Nesting (1981)
** (out of 4)
Writer Laura Cochran (Robin Groves) rents an old mansion from Colonel LeBrun (John Carradine) and soon realizes that there are some strange things going on inside it. It turns out that the mansion was used in WWII for prostitution and that many of them were brutally murdered and now their vengeful spirits are there. The 80s will always be remembered by horror fans for the countless slashers but if you look back at the early part of the decade you'll notice countless haunted house movies. This one here certainly isn't in the same league as THE SHINING or THE CHANGELING but for the first minutes it's actually pretty good but sadly it all falls apart. The first portion of the film actually managed to bring up a nice atmosphere, which led to a few creepy moments but these scenes quickly went out the window as the film started to movie into the second half. This is where the film really went off the tracks because they take everything from the house to the outside and we got some pretty stupid scenes and not any good ones. There are two weirdos on the outside bothering the writer and we get separate attack scenes and neither of them are very effective. I'm going to avoid spoiling anything but the second attack gets dragged out to a pretty long sequence, which just ends is a very silly fashion. Another problem with the film is that it runs way too long and simply doesn't have a strong enough of a story to keep the viewer interesting in what's going on. Groves offers up a good performance as the writer who is slowly losing her mind as does Michael David Lally and Christopher Loomis in his small role. Vet Carradine is always fun to watch but it looks like by 1981 people would know better than to rent a house from him. Oscar winner Gloria Grahame (THE BAD AND THE BEAUTIFUL) makes a small appearance here in her final film. Another thing that kept bothering me throughout this film is wondering why the writer simply didn't leave the house. I mean, after countless deaths, attacks on your life and strange happenings, there really wasn't a reason for her to stay yet she just put up with all of this as if it was just a typical day. THE NESTING isn't a bad movie but at the same time it certainly needed a lot of work to be made better.
