SpuffyWeb Sadly Over-hyped

ReaderKenka Let's be realistic.

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

kitfox30 When i was a little girl, my sister had rented this as a New Release. he and her friends had gotten so spooked, they decided to spend the night upstairs in my room rather than going downstairs to hers. For lack of something better to do, I had watched it with them. There are some truly surprising moments and o totally enjoyed it. Watched it a few times over the next few years. Haven't been able to find in anywhere, same with "Popcorn" but am going to keep looking.

Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW) Being agoraphobic can take a toll on you. For writer, Lauren Cochran(Robin Groves), life in the big city isn't a walk in the park. She's afraid to anywhere. So when she sees her shrink, she rents a mansion in the country. There, she can do her work. However, strange occurrences start to unwind while she's staying there. When she opened the window and stepped out, she is stuck and afraid to move. Her shrink comes by to help, but he's tragically killed trying to help her. More to wonder what has went on in the mansion. It turns out that the mansion has been used as a brothel. And the colonel(John Carradine), has seen his granddaughter living there which has given him a stroke. Two of the locals, a handyman, and the town drunk were responsible for the murders of the prostitutes and other soldiers in the brothel. This movie was a bit of a cross between "The Shining", "The Boogeyman", "The Sentinel", and "The Devonsville Terror". There's plenty of supernatural aura, acts of vengeance and redemption. I liked it very much. Plenty to say. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Mr_Ectoplasma "The Nesting" follows Lauren Cochran, a New York City novelist who begins suffering from crippling agoraphobia. She decides to eliminate the problem by relocating to a remote, rundown mansion upstate for solitude and an opportunity to work on a book; things don't quite go as planned though when it's discovered that the house was a former brothel where multiple prostitutes disappeared fifty years prior.I had never heard of this film and came across a review of it online; I was surprised how under the radar the film is, particularly that in my decades-long existence as a horror fan, I'd never crossed paths with it. It is a strange film—in some ways, it's very sophisticated and thematically interesting, and yet at times it is also terribly awkward, poorly scripted, and borderline tedious. So, what's the attraction here? "The Nesting," in spite of some fundamental problems, establishes an atmospheric glaze over itself that is absolutely flummoxing. The cinematography is surprisingly lush for this type of film, and the location and setting helps bolster the utterly strange vibes of the picture. Some of its best moments hands down are the protagonist's encounters with the ghostly prostitutes; the apparitions appear and disappear from the mise-en-scène as if living characters passing through a room, and their presentation in this way is startling and strangely terrifying. The fact that the majority of the horror scenes here occur in daylight is also another unusual feature of the picture.As I said before, there are some problems with the film, the first being that it seems to toe the line between haunted house film and full-blown psychological horror; there are even moments where it appears to be taking on tenets of a slasher film. This is not to say that a film can't cross-reference genres, but the script here just doesn't manage to do so gracefully. The film is also at times awkwardly edited, which is where some of its budget limitations seem to visibly crop up, and the chemistry between some of the actors is a bit off key. Robin Groves is decent as the lead, although her character is strangely written to begin with. John Carradine shows up as the plutocratic owner of the home, while Gloria Grahame appears in her final screen role as the madame of the bygone brothel.The film's conclusion is quite frankly baffling, and I was surprised to see it end as it did, as the film leads the viewer to believe they will be treated with some sort of conceivable resolution. "The Nesting" ardently resists this, and leaves the viewer with an uncomfortable ambiguity that is atypical of this kind of picture. All in all, I found this film strangely fixating and visually eerie in spite of its hodgepodge script and uneven performances. In the greater scheme, it is a marginal entry in the genre, though I must admit there is something confounding and creepy about it on a base level. Worth a look. 6/10.

capkronos 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.