Is there any creature on Earth more vile and repulsive than the cockroach? Just the thought of one possibly crawling on my person freaks me out and makes me question God’s existence. Now, imagine said vile creature traveling in hordes with a new found hunger for flesh. This is the plot of Terence Winkless’ 1988 creature feature The Nest, thankfully ushered into the HD world by SCREAM Factory. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare to get the heebie jeebies.
The film focuses on Sheriff Richard Tarbell (Frank Luz) and the love of his life, Beth (Lisa Langlois). Beth has been gone for four years, but has returned just in time to join Richard in watching their hometown fall to pieces as it becomes overrun by packs of cockroaches that are devouring everything in sight. As Richard investigates, he discovers that the town’s mayor (Robert Lansing), who’s also Beth’s father, may know more about what’s going on than he’s admitting. Things get even more complicated when the mayor calls in Dr. Morgan Hubbard (Terri Treas) to do her own investigations. Little does anyone know, but the goo Dr. Hubbard has ulterior motives of her own.
Where most horror films take a slow burn approach to their monsters, The Nest comes out swinging. The opening scene of the film shows Richard grabbing and swigging his night old coffee with a single roach floating around in it (ugh). The film quickly escalates to full blown hordes of roaches devouring anything or anyone in their path. This leads to some rather incredible gore and practical effects scenes that are quite effective. As the film progresses, it takes a turn into The Thing territory and really amps up what are protagonists are actually up against.
I’m sure many would immediately dismiss it as schlock, but The Nest is immensely watchable. Everyone in the cast has a great chemistry together, especially Luz and Lanlois in the lead roles. By no means is anyone putting in award winning work, but everyone brings a sense of believability to their role which, in a film about droves of flesh-eating cockroaches, goes a long way.
There are some slights, for sure. The film does get a bit hokey every now and again and even a bit humorous at times. While some of the effects are almost mind bogglingly good, others come off as comically bad and under cooked. It’s obvious which bits got most of the effects funding and which didn’t. Robert Lansing also seems to go a bit underused as the film progresses. Off the bat he’s the typical 80’s old man hard ass full of moral ambiguity, but as the town becomes overrun he’s relegated to one phone conversation after the next.
The Nest was Winkless’ first foray into directing and, for an inaugural effort, it’s fairly strong. The film is filled with lots of great shots, especially all of the outdoors moments early on in the film. There’s also a great sense of pacing as the story never feels bogged down by its own minutia. The film kicks in to gear early on and doesn’t let up. An impressive first effort that is sure to make viewers even more afraid of what’s crawling in the dark.
High-Def Presentation
SCREAM Factory continues to blow me away with their incredible transfers of nearly forgotten horror and cult gems, and The Nest is no different. It may honestly be one of the best transfers SCREAM has provided, and that’s saying something. You’ve never quite known the repulsion of seeing cockroaches in a HD MPEG 4 1080p/AVC Encode until now.
The film has a noticeable, but not detracting, amount of grain throughout. The picture has some softness in the beginning but sharpens up quick and, while not reference quality, manages to make quite an impression. Flesh tones look natural and most colors have a bit of drabness about them but maintain a strong presence. The gore truly shines as the colors are far more vivid and every blood-soaked detail is on full display. This does make some of the cheaper effects look even cheaper, but if you’re watching The Nest, you most likely knew what you were getting into in the first place.
The audio presentation is decent, if not slightly below the video aspects. Although the disc claims to feature a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, it actually only provides a 2.0 lossless track. This isn’t a huge negative as I don’t think the sources available would have taken much advantage of the 5.1 as they barely do the 2.0. Most of the audio is focused in the center, with only a few ambient sounds here and there throughout the film, but it’s never really enough to provide an immersive experience. The cluttering sound the roaches make (which still haunts my dreams) at times can seem a bit overblown in the mix, but it’s something that feels intentional to the original films sources and not really the mix’s fault. While it’s far from a track to write home about, it remains serviceable to the film.
Beyond the Feature
This one is definitely a tough one to call. On one hand, there’s only one special feature, which is an Audio Commentary with Director Terence Winkless. Normally this would be an immediate 2 or 3 score just for sheer lack of additional features. However, Winkless’ commentary is almost entrancing. It’s so refreshing to hear a director approach his film in such an honest way; pointing out good and bad bits and relaying info on both accordingly. It’s the kind of commentary where you feel the person speaking could be right in the room with you. It made the film even more enjoyable and I instantly wanted to watch it all over again. This is also a film that without SCREAM Factory’s love and consideration would have never made it to Blu-ray in the first place.
Having never seen the film before, I went into The Nest not knowing what to expect. What I got was a film that I came away truly enjoying, despite my unbearable fear of cockroaches. That fear may have even helped me enjoy the movie more, as the scenes of masses of roaches made me squirm and turn on the lights.
The Nest manages to feel equal parts a 50’s monster movie and 80’s gore horror with a dash of comedy of the intentional and unintentional varieties mixed in. It is entertaining throughout and moves at great pace with a solid, relatable cast that helps anchor the film in a sense of believability. The PQ is quite beyond what I expected of the film and the AQ, while not as impressive, does the movie justice. The incredibly informative and entertaining commentary from Winkless more than makes up for the lack of any other special features.
Bottom line, SCREAM Factory has produced yet another must own disc that more than deserves its space amongst the horror, cult and midnight movie fans collection. The Nest is fun, entertaining, gory and ridiculous. Thanks to all the HD cockroaches, it also might make you never be able to sleep again.
The Nest Blu-ray Review
The film focuses on Sheriff Richard Tarbell (Frank Luz) and the love of his life, Beth (Lisa Langlois). Beth has been gone for four years, but has returned just in time to join Richard in watching their hometown fall to pieces as it becomes overrun by packs of cockroaches that are devouring everything in sight. As Richard investigates, he discovers that the town’s mayor (Robert Lansing), who’s also Beth’s father, may know more about what’s going on than he’s admitting. Things get even more complicated when the mayor calls in Dr. Morgan Hubbard (Terri Treas) to do her own investigations. Little does anyone know, but the goo Dr. Hubbard has ulterior motives of her own.
Where most horror films take a slow burn approach to their monsters, The Nest comes out swinging. The opening scene of the film shows Richard grabbing and swigging his night old coffee with a single roach floating around in it (ugh). The film quickly escalates to full blown hordes of roaches devouring anything or anyone in their path. This leads to some rather incredible gore and practical effects scenes that are quite effective. As the film progresses, it takes a turn into The Thing territory and really amps up what are protagonists are actually up against.
I’m sure many would immediately dismiss it as schlock, but The Nest is immensely watchable. Everyone in the cast has a great chemistry together, especially Luz and Lanlois in the lead roles. By no means is anyone putting in award winning work, but everyone brings a sense of believability to their role which, in a film about droves of flesh-eating cockroaches, goes a long way.
There are some slights, for sure. The film does get a bit hokey every now and again and even a bit humorous at times. While some of the effects are almost mind bogglingly good, others come off as comically bad and under cooked. It’s obvious which bits got most of the effects funding and which didn’t. Robert Lansing also seems to go a bit underused as the film progresses. Off the bat he’s the typical 80’s old man hard ass full of moral ambiguity, but as the town becomes overrun he’s relegated to one phone conversation after the next.
The Nest was Winkless’ first foray into directing and, for an inaugural effort, it’s fairly strong. The film is filled with lots of great shots, especially all of the outdoors moments early on in the film. There’s also a great sense of pacing as the story never feels bogged down by its own minutia. The film kicks in to gear early on and doesn’t let up. An impressive first effort that is sure to make viewers even more afraid of what’s crawling in the dark.
High-Def Presentation
SCREAM Factory continues to blow me away with their incredible transfers of nearly forgotten horror and cult gems, and The Nest is no different. It may honestly be one of the best transfers SCREAM has provided, and that’s saying something. You’ve never quite known the repulsion of seeing cockroaches in a HD MPEG 4 1080p/AVC Encode until now.
The film has a noticeable, but not detracting, amount of grain throughout. The picture has some softness in the beginning but sharpens up quick and, while not reference quality, manages to make quite an impression. Flesh tones look natural and most colors have a bit of drabness about them but maintain a strong presence. The gore truly shines as the colors are far more vivid and every blood-soaked detail is on full display. This does make some of the cheaper effects look even cheaper, but if you’re watching The Nest, you most likely knew what you were getting into in the first place.
The audio presentation is decent, if not slightly below the video aspects. Although the disc claims to feature a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, it actually only provides a 2.0 lossless track. This isn’t a huge negative as I don’t think the sources available would have taken much advantage of the 5.1 as they barely do the 2.0. Most of the audio is focused in the center, with only a few ambient sounds here and there throughout the film, but it’s never really enough to provide an immersive experience. The cluttering sound the roaches make (which still haunts my dreams) at times can seem a bit overblown in the mix, but it’s something that feels intentional to the original films sources and not really the mix’s fault. While it’s far from a track to write home about, it remains serviceable to the film.
Beyond the Feature
This one is definitely a tough one to call. On one hand, there’s only one special feature, which is an Audio Commentary with Director Terence Winkless. Normally this would be an immediate 2 or 3 score just for sheer lack of additional features. However, Winkless’ commentary is almost entrancing. It’s so refreshing to hear a director approach his film in such an honest way; pointing out good and bad bits and relaying info on both accordingly. It’s the kind of commentary where you feel the person speaking could be right in the room with you. It made the film even more enjoyable and I instantly wanted to watch it all over again. This is also a film that without SCREAM Factory’s love and consideration would have never made it to Blu-ray in the first place.
Having never seen the film before, I went into The Nest not knowing what to expect. What I got was a film that I came away truly enjoying, despite my unbearable fear of cockroaches. That fear may have even helped me enjoy the movie more, as the scenes of masses of roaches made me squirm and turn on the lights.
The Nest manages to feel equal parts a 50’s monster movie and 80’s gore horror with a dash of comedy of the intentional and unintentional varieties mixed in. It is entertaining throughout and moves at great pace with a solid, relatable cast that helps anchor the film in a sense of believability. The PQ is quite beyond what I expected of the film and the AQ, while not as impressive, does the movie justice. The incredibly informative and entertaining commentary from Winkless more than makes up for the lack of any other special features.
Bottom line, SCREAM Factory has produced yet another must own disc that more than deserves its space amongst the horror, cult and midnight movie fans collection. The Nest is fun, entertaining, gory and ridiculous. Thanks to all the HD cockroaches, it also might make you never be able to sleep again.
– Matt Hardeman
Shop for The Nest on Blu-ray and DVD combo for a discounted price at Amazon.com (February 19, 2013 release date).
TheHDRoom may be paid a small commission for any services or products ordered through select links on this page.
Recommended for you