THE NESTING (1981)
Article 2801 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-7-2009
Posting Date: 4-14-2009
Directed by Armand Weston
Featuring Robin Groves, Christopher Loomis, Michael David Lally
Country: USA

A woman writer who suffers from agoraphobia moves into a country house which she discovers for the first time, despite having described it in detail in a novel she’s written. It soon becomes obvious the house is haunted and the ghosts want revenge, but upon who? And why?

Despite the fact that the movie crosses two very familiar horror storylines (the haunted house and the revenge from the grave plots), it still manages to be offbeat enough to hold my interest, and manages to have some interesting details. This is good, because the movie definitely suffers in several regards; some of the acting is quite weak, the dialogue is often clunky and some of it is quite awful, there are plot elements that are never explained (why do the ghosts go after the doctor?), and it has a big ending where none is needed. There are some nice touches, though; I love the scene where the writer is talking on the phone in the foreground while we see a central character appear in the background, listen to the conversation, and depart before she knows he’s been there. John Carradine does a good job in a role that gives him a bit more to play with than most of his other roles at the time. This was also Gloria Grahame’s last movie, and she might have been more effective if her big scene wasn’t one of the clunkiest in the movie. Despite certain nice touches, this movie has a very poor reputation (its rating on IMDB is 2.7), so let the viewer beware.