Rent The Nesting (2015)

Spoilers follow ... - The Nesting review by NP

Doug (Jody Quigley) and his beautiful fiancée (Katrina Law) have their blissful engagement party interrupted by a former boyfriend, which despite Lori’s tearful apologies, incites Doug to drive really fast and accidently kill her. It’s hard to sympathise much with such petulance, despite the audience being treated to many subsequent images of Doug struggling to continue life alone … whilst apparently being haunted. Wrong of me, isn’t it, to mention Doug is far from heart-throb material, and how lucky he is to be with Lori and that perhaps should have exercised a little more humility?

Crusty old Woody (Thomas Roy) in the hardware store warns of vengeful spirits residing where Doug is living. Certainly Doug’s dreams are persuasively creepy. And yet his waking hours are cheered slightly by the affectionate neighbour Jamie (Lili Bordán), herself suffering the repercussions of a troubled past – and inevitably, sex is had, with Lori barely cold in her grave.

The spirit, which appears to be Lori and screeching newborn daughter, is not happy about Jamie. The familiar conflict between what is real and what is being imagine ensues – but to the film’s great credit, it is never specifically indicated that the hauntings and violence are entirely in Doug’s mind. Although there is a great temptation to think of the film as too restrained in its horrors, it is a persuasive examination of grief and mourning. Only when (SPOILER) Doug - who has mentally tortured himself that he killed Lori - also kills Jamie, do things become intriguing on a different level. The final scene with Doug enjoying family time with the three dead people in his life, redeems some of the film’s earlier uneventfulness.