The Nesting

This is one of those movies I've wanted to see for years. When I was a kid, we had this direct to video feature called "Haunted Hollywood" or something like that, and it had clips from lots of different horror movies, and I watched it over and over when I was a kid because my mom wouldn't let me watch the movies themselves so seeing the clips was the next best thing for me. The clip shown from "The Nesting" was a great one. I won't spoil it, but for everyone who's seen "The Nesting," it's the part of the movie with the guy in the water and the arms. That was an awesome image when I was a kid. It haunted my dreams and thoughts every time I went swimming or wading in a pond. Based on that one clip alone, I've been obsessed with getting to see this movie someday for years now. I was worried that it would suck and thus thwart my expectations.

So did it disappoint me? The movie certainly has pacing problems. At 1 hour and 43 minutes, it's overlong and there are entire sequences that could have been cut out to make this a stronger movie. There's one scene where the dipshit main character stands in a room turning in circles for five minutes while various lines of dialogue repeat in her head. Dude, I was so pissed I wanted to fast forward the damn thing. The movie does have its charms, though. The main setting is creepy, the plot is spooky enough (when it isn't stepping on its own toes and taking too damn long to get to the point) and the lead actress isn't bad. I started out hating her, but she grew on me as the movie progressed (mostly because she either directly or indirectly caused the deaths of a bunch of people and she never seemed to broken up about it and no one seemed in any hurry to notify the police).

I can see why my mom never wanted me to watch this movie. It's pretty rapetastic, and I swear almost every male character in the film tries to rape someone at least once, not to mention most of them killed at least one person, too, and they didn't seem too bothered by this, either. what a bunch of reprobates. The sleazy nature of the characters adds another unsettling layer to the movie, and I dug it. I like it when things aren't always black and white. The movie has some serious flaws, but I have to admit, I did enjoy watching it, and after all these years, it was worth the wait.