To be honest, I had too much whiskey prior to and during my viewing of this killer cockroach taking over a small town film, so key plot points remain a blur. That's fine, so when I view it again in a few years under the same circumstances it will be like a first viewing. While the film never lives up to the absurdly tasteless poster of a 5 ft tall roach mounting a scantily clad woman, it's still a fun cheesy creature feature. Throw in a mad scientist, a wacky exterminator and a whole lot of insect action and this ranks as one of the better late 80s output from Corman. The Scream Factory blu-ray seems to have put in more effort restoring the best looking version of this film, than the filmmakers put into making the actual film.

"The Nest" isn't the best of this kind of film you're ever going to see, but it certainly isn't the worst, either. It's a decent creepy-crawlies shocker, loosely based on a novel by Eli Cantor, that if nothing else will hit home for any viewer with a roach phobia. It's competent without being distinguished, but does deliver some solid visceral thrills during its fairly trim 88 minute run time.A New England fishing village finds itself inundated by hordes of killer cockroaches when an experiment goes horribly wrong. Among those forced to deal with the increasingly untenable problem are a young sheriff (Franc Luz) who's inherited his job from his late father, the morally compromised mayor (Robert Lansing), the mayors' daughter (Lisa Langlois) who's returned home after a stint in the big city, a demented scientist (Terri Treas), and a quirky exterminator (Stephen Davies).Terence H. Winkless, who'd received co-screenplay credit (with John Sayles) on "The Howling", debuts as director here and does a decent job. He does get good performances out of his cast, especially the lovely Treas as a crazy lady who seems oddly turned on when roaches start nibbling on her hand. Also in the cast are Diana Bellamy as a demanding local busybody, Jack Collins as the amiable Shaky Jake, and Nancy Morgan (first wife of the late John Ritter) as sweet diner waitress Lillian. Luz is a very likable hero.The on location shooting (including use of the legendary Bronson Caves) is an asset, as is the spooky music by Rick Conrad. The special effects are reasonably impressive, with some fun shots of roaches growing out of people and forming hybrids with animals that they've ingested. The many shots of swarming roaches are sure to make some in the audience squirm in their seats.If you enjoy a good gross 'em out horror film and particularly enjoy those that revolve around ravenous insects, then you should be able to appreciate "The Nest".Six out of 10.

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.

Ants dont scare me,and nor do spiders.But roaches are the one thing that freak me out. I think this movie had good special effects for 1988,and I thought it had a good cast of character actors.A good companion to this movie is the bug [1975] which has a similar plot about killer roaches.