La casa del sortilegio

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.

Book novelist finds herself strangely attracted to an eerie, run down house in the middle of nowhere. Against her better judgement, she rents the house to work on her newest book and to get some peace and quiet, however she is unaware that the house used to be a bordello where a series of murders took place years earlier. To make matters worse, the ghosts of the victims seem to be haunting the place.

Scary horror film with some rather original moments and some surprising death scenes, runs out of steam in the second half and drags onto a rather unsatisfying conclusion. The cast is better then usual however.

Rated R; Strong Violence, Nudity, Sexual Situations.

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.

Probably should have been much more nastier and sleazy than it was, because of the plot's lurid context and it being directed by adult filmmaker Armand Weston. However that's not the case, even though it does provide some nudity and unpleasant shocks it doesn't go all that far with it. Nonetheless the main issue arose with the narrative, as this haunted house feature just wasn't all that gripping in its mystery or characters. Outside some of its stinging set-pieces (rooftop rescue) and its perfect rural locations that centred it all around a strikingly imposing Victorian house, it was rather bland. Novelist Lauren Cochran suffers from Agoraphobia and decides to leave the city for the countryside for peace in an attempt to help her writer's block. The old house she rents has a shocking history, although unaware to that, strange things begin happening as she begins to see a recurring lady figure and brutal deaths start occurring. The formulaic story is rather contrived in its developments (visions of the past, family secrets and retribution) or in a way there's not much happening at all. There the script even toys around with the character's phobia to draw upon mystery and tension. It's unremarkable, but still the film looks well produced for such a little b-picture. Many stylish shots that can have an eerie feel, a kinetically unhinged music score that only adds to the anxiety filled atmosphere and the editing is tautly done despite its slowly unravelling nature. The performances are kind of bumpy as Robin Graves' neurotically uptight turn is believable, but aggravating in some hysterics. Also genre favourite John Carradine has a key role and tiny part for Gloria Grahame. An accomplished, but unspectacular 80s haunted house fare.

"Last night I lost touch of all reality".