You won't be disappointed!

The Worst Film Ever

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

This flick is the Ultimate in Mutant Cockroach Terror! I love this one! Easily one of the best Roger Corman productions from the 80's! Sure it has a cheesy 80's synthesizer-score and displays ditto wardrobe and hairdos. But it also has a decent plot, well-drawn-out characters and... great gross gore effects! It follows the rules of a creature feature by the book, and the film benefits a lot from it. The puppetry and 'animatronics' might be rather static (not very lively), but the creature design is rather great and the 'mayor-roach' transformation scene is major fun to watch! There's also a 'cat-roach' in it, and just wait until you (briefly) see the final 'Über-mutant-roach' (which for some reason always reminds me of the final creature we get to see in John Carpenters "The Thing")! If you like all the afore-mentioned ingredients, then seek this baby out and have fun with it.

Richard Tarbell (Franc Luz) plays the local Sheriff on a small island just off the coast of California called North Port. He is dating a waitress who works in the local diner. However, his ex and Mayor Elias Johnson's (Robert Lansing) daughter Elizabeth (Lisa Langlois) flies back into town. It turns out the Mayor has allowed a company called 'INTEC' and Dr. Morgan Hubbard (Terri Treas) to conduct genetic experiments, the purpose of which are to create the ultimate pest control that doesn't use pesticides or sprays, genetically altered cockroaches that are supposed to eat other roaches, although it's never explained how these roaches themselves would be controlled, maybe no one thought about that small point. Unfortunately these roaches eat everything else as well. First turning cats and dogs into skinless carcasses, eating all the meat from the local store and all the glue that binds the books together in the public library! They seem to be everywhere and the local exterminator Homer (Stephen Davis) can't cope. The Mayor summons Hubbard from 'INTEC' and demands she stops her work. They soon discover that these genetically created roaches mutate from generation to generation and are starting to become resistant to all scientific attempts to destroy them, and start to become disgusting hybrids of themselves and what they've eaten. Hubbard convinces Mayor Johnson that she can destroy the roaches, and prevents him from evacuating the town at the expense of wild hysteria even though the entire town has been eaten by the roaches except sheriff Tarbell, the Mayor, Dr. Hubbard, Elizabeth and Homer, but he has already ordered the chemical spraying of the town, fearing the roaches will spread to the mainland, with a lethal dose of poison that would also be fatal to any person still left on the island, and they need to turn the lighthouse on to cancel it, but predictably the light doesn't work. So the remaining survivors must either stop or face both mutant killer cockroaches and a lethal dose of chemical poison! They must find the roaches nest and destroy the queen before it's too late. Directed by Terence H. Winkless this is a decent, solid effort. The script by Robert King based on a novel by Eli Cantor is a bit on the talky side, and the sub-plot involving the suicide of Elizabeth's mother goes nowhere and is totally unnecessary and irrelevant. Why, when they find the nest, does it contain a box with loads of explosives and a timer? Where did it come from? Not the sort of thing you just leave lying around. There is also a bizarre scene toward the end, sheriff Tarbell and Homer are sat in a car discussing the queen and what they might find when they enter the roaches nest, half way through their conversation the sheriff pulls his gun out points it at the dashboard and fires a shot off. Why does he shoot the dashboard when he was in the middle of a perfectly calm conversation with someone? Why waste a bullet when earlier on he had seen what a couple of the mutant roaches had become? Why not save the bullet to protect himself against anything he might find in the nest? I haven't got a clue and I can't think of a reasonable explanation, the scene still baffles me! The effects are variable, there's one or two good gore scenes, mostly involving skinned animals and mutilated corpses. When a mutant half roach/half whatever it's eaten shows up the special effects are less successful. Their just really stiff and lifeless puppets with one operator on each arm, they have almost no movement whatsoever. Although the human to mutant roach transformation sequence is quite gooey and gross looking. For what it's worth the video released by MGM in the UK has a shot from this sequence on the cover of the box that doesn't actually appear in the finished film, it was probably never included in any released version but proves that more footage of this was shot. Hubbard's death at the hands of her own creation at the end also contains pleasing amounts of slime, gore, blood and a giant monster consisting of a mass of body parts from various humans and animals. Acting, photography, and music are all OK but nothing exceptional, professional enough. Decent horror film, just a little dull and silly in places. Worth a rent for horror fans, or even better watch it on T.V. if it's on, for free.

This movie features roaches as super flesh eating killers. This may have been the first movie where roaches were the primary killers, though not the first movie where roaches are killers. "Damnation Alley" featured a scene with killer cockroaches and "Creepshow" had a story that had them. In this one they are the star. Not as good as it could have been this one doesn't have all that many kills in them. I could be wrong on that point, however, because I have not seen this one in quite some time. The roaches have gone killer and this very strange research lady is in town to study them. Yes, she is quite strange as at one point she has her hand in a box on the killer roaches and she is like "They are biting my hand", and she says this in almost a state of ecstasy. There is also one super big roach near the end of this one, like in so many insect films. Not a great movie, but worth checking out on a night you are bored out of your mind.

I am so glad this film was made a few years AFTER I graduated from college -- the apartments on campus were so badly infested with cockroaches I wrote a regular column in the housing newsletter called "Roach World" offering helpful tips on roach control. If The Nest would have been made during that time I would have run screaming off that campus altogether! Never have I seen insects so menacing in a film! It's perfect for making the viewer feel uneasy and checking in cabinets and under the kitchen sink for weeks after.Rather than try to be seriously scientific like Phase IV or the just plain "what the...." mentality of Squirm, The Nest gives us that good old "genetic experiment gone wrong" scenario and just RUNS with it. Conveniently containing the terror to an island, there's enough carnage for several films put together. Even the big confrontation, as wacky as it looks, manages to keep you riveted. I've seen it all in films, but one thing that can still get me unglued is something horrible happening to animals, and while I'm sure there was no harm to any REAL animals in the making of this film, the effects work was so gruesome I still wince when watching it! Nothing and no one is safe from the spreading cockroaches, and the viewer is not given much time to relax. If you're going to do an over-the-top bug movie, this is a good one to learn from....this is from the days before CGI took over and made things look like an upgraded cartoon.I must comment about one particular reviewer here on IMDb that felt there was no counterbalance of humour or "naked babes," saying it was scary but too gross. Excuse me, but a film about killer cockroaches (yes, even the X-Files went that route) is bound to be a bit gruesome and you might as well have a thrill ride with it. You don't have to have laughs in EVERY horror film, nor do you have to have naked women. Start considering that there are other folks out here, and that breast-on-the-brain guys don't necessarily run the world. Most films throw in laughs and nudity in order to cover up the fact that the scares are lacking. The Nest is potent with dread and scary moments, so if you want your share of gratuitous nudity and guffaws then watch any of the drek made from Troma and have a field day! Frankly, I'm happy that at least some films like The Nest that have been released under the eye of Roger Corman managed to escape his usual need to throw in breasts at any possible moment. You don't know how many times I've heard female friends of mine saying, "Okay, if the guys get to see the boobs, where are the men's butts for US??" Talk about balance, then turnabout IS fair play, guys... Some films lose their power over the years or after a couple viewings, but The Nest never loses its effectiveness. My only complaint about it is that on DVD as part of the "Roger Corman Classics" series, Corman and the folks at New Concorde should treat us and the films they release with a bit more respect by not settling for no-frills, full-frame DVDs (a scary trend that even Artisan DVDs heading towards). The Nest would have been better suited with a few extras and widescreen treatment (if it wasn't a 1:33 to 1 ratio to begin with)...Corman could learn a thing or two from Anchor Bay (and even MGM) -- they at least give even some of the silliest films audio commentaries and other features like widescreen. The Nest is a classic piece of gruesome cinema and should be experienced to the fullest!And yeah, what's up with that woman's hair?