All of a sudden novelist Lauren Cochran (Robin Groves, “Silver Bullet”) starts having agoraphobic freak-out episodes when out in public.  She seeks help from her Psychiatrist (Patrick Farrelly) but ultimately decides to leave the busy bustle of city life for a while, which seems to be the direct cause of these panic attacks.  She enlists her friend Mark Felton (Christopher Loomis) to drive her to the countryside of Dover Falls, where they stumble upon a mansion which recalls almost exactly, the very cover art for her latest book.  She claims she’s never seen the house before but somehow dreamt about it for the book.  Drawn to the old house, she decides it would be a good place to rent for a while to write her next novel.  She gets in touch with the owner of the home, Col. Lebrun (John Carradine, “Shock Waves”) by way of his grandson Daniel (Michael David Lally) who agrees to rent the house to her, but upon meeting Col. Lebrun he mysteriously has a stroke.

Upon the first day unpacking at the house a window gets smashed as if shot with a gun, and Lauren starts remembering her dreams for the first time in years.  Her initial dream showcases her disrobing in front of a mirror, fondling her stomach and breasts as hands grab at her from behind.  The aforementioned hands end up being Mark’s and the dream continues on with her psychiatrist reaching for her as well as Daniel, in a room containing soldiers and whores. 

After the dream Lauren calls her psychiatrist to tell him about it and also claims she believes the house to be haunted.  She begs him to come for a visit and threatens to stop seeing him if he doesn’t, so he reluctantly obliges.  However, when he does make it up to the country home he finds her on the roof paralyzed, unable to snap out of her stupor.  When he goes to her aid he finds himself thrown from the steeple part of the roof and impaled through the face on the ledge below.

Determined to make this situation work, and tired of running away from her problems, she is resolute to stay in the house.  Determination aside, she finds her typewriter tampered with on a couple of occasions and paranoia sets sail.  She accuses the maintenance man, a drunkard named Frank (Bill Rowley), of the meddling, who merely brushes her off as being a nut-job.  Is she nuts?  Is he messing with her things? Or is there another, more sinister force at work here?  Let’s stick with the latter.  Visions of dead bodies of beautiful women begin and continue to appear.  Visions of soldiers and prostitutes banging in the house persist.  As the film unravels, the mystery of the old house and its insidious past come to light, and little does she know it, but Lauren is at the forefront.

There are a few cool secondary characters in “The Nesting.”  The best of the bunch being Frank the drunkard maintenance man who is sort of reminiscent of Snakey Bender from “Fangs.”  Another that stands out is the angry, crazy-eyed chubby character named Abner Wells (David Tabor), a friend/associate of Frank’s who incessantly licks his lips, adding a small amount of comic relief and lunacy to the film.

“The Nesting” is a great little suspenseful horror film that blends supernatural horror with violence.  Until now it has been long unavailable on home video.  It’s a slow burner horror mystery with some gruesome deaths and imagery, so there should be enough here to maintain your interest.

Blue Underground brings “The Nesting” to Blu-ray from the original camera negative.  The film is presented 1.85:1 anamorphic, 1080p, MPEG-4 AVC in a dual layer 50GB disc.  The film is slightly grainy throughout but vibrant and colorful and doesn’t contain any of that pesky digital noise.  The audio is presented English 7.1 DTS-HD and English 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround EX, with the option of English, French and Spanish subtitles.  The audio is decent enough, but doesn’t boast too much surround.  There are a few special features to behold in this Blu-ray release including 12-minutes of ‘Deleted and Extended Scenes’ (8 in total), the English and Spanish ‘Theatrical Trailers,’ ‘TV Spots,’ and a ‘Poster & Still Gallery.’

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 DVD SPECS:
 Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 1080p MPEG-4 AVC
 Region: A
 Audio: English 7.1 DTS-HD, 5.1 Dolby Digital Surround EX, Dolby

 SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL:
 - Deleted and Extended Scenes
 - Theatrical Trailers
 - TV Spots
 - Poster & Still Gallery