The Nesting (1981)

Dir: Armand Weston

An agoraphobic author moves into a haunted (former) whorehouse in this early 80s potboiler. All the staple haunted house elements are present (breaking glasses, strange noises, disappearing furnishings, etc) and although the conceit of agoraphobia provides a nifty answer to the perennial "Why don't you just leave?" question in these movies, there are few other surprises. The twist is signposted from very early on and while it's not a terrible one, it all feels a little bit TV Movie Of The Week. What's bizarre is that this is the only "straight" feature by the mysterious and enigmatic (and now dead) hardcore porn director Armand Weston. Perhaps he was intentionally playing it very safe in order to launch a mainstream career (if so, it didn't work) but, sadly, I think a large dose of nudity (of which there's almost none) and gore (of which there's little beyond one pretty mean sickle-in-the-face moment) is exactly what's needed. Especially for a haunted whorehouse movie! It's all very sweet and sincerely made but, sadly, there's not a lot here that's memorable. As a bonus, there are some quotably bad one-liners though ("You're too crazy to be crazy!" and "You wanted to type on my typewriter!" being two examples). **