When are people going to learn that kids are a menace?
Originally called The Bewailing, The Nest is 2021’s offering towards creature feature entomology that has some serious squirming value. If you have even the slightest tinge of trypophobia, a few scenes in this film will have your teeth itching.
Now that we have the caveats and pleasantries out of the way, let the games begin.
The Nest is written by actress Jennifer Trudrung and directed by the illustrious James Suttles, a combination that yields a powerful story that spreads its tentacles over a wide array of issues. It starts as a foreboding warning in the form of a teddy bear from a yard sale that is just a bit too cute. What is at first endearing does not linger long before we are given a peek into its sinister origin.
The first part of the film, after the casually creepy introduction scene, of course, deals with a child’s separation anxiety and a timid, but loving mother trying to cope with it. Maple Suttles plays the role of Meg, the little girl in the middle of her parents’ surreptitiously strained relationship and owner of the teddy bear with a bug in its belly – literally.
Over the course of the slow burning 100 minute run time, The Nest eases us into the everyday problems of Meg’s recovering drug addict mother, Beth, and her stern father (Kevin Patrick Murphy) trying to balance their dynamic. The film feels dragged in many places, dealing too much with the psychological downward spiral of Meg and her mother, played by Sarah Navratil, than to focus on the looming insect threat.
Some of Meg’s lines are delivered almost incomprehensibly, a lot of the dialogue is tedious and there is too little focus on the horror element of the bugs until deep into the film. Too many missed opportunities at horrendous scares to even out the interpersonal jousting, but perhaps that was director Suttle’s purpose – to present an already tense mental situation before letting loose with the all the nasty.
Throwing horror icon Dee Wallace into the mix takes The Nest to another level of dramatic escalation between the characters as the ever-imminent infestation takes hold on them all. With Meg’s behavior getting ever more difficult to handle, it becomes clear that she is the teddy bear bug’s general, spreading its malicious infection one victim at a time. Sarah Navratil does a great job at projecting a mother’s fear of neglecting her child’s needs and the rest of the cast hold up well.
The Nest has a Body Snatchers feel, but it holds back too much for too long before you tire of the almost repetitive episodes that befall Beth before they get to the crawly goodness at the center. The beauty of the film is that it is obviously subtle in its suggestion and metaphor, only teasing its audience until we get to appreciate the full, disgusting climax, wrapped in entomophobic chaos. I just wish The Nest did a little more squirming, but as with Sleepaway Camp, you have to keep at it, because the last bit is gold in the gross-factor Olympics.
--Tasha Danzig
