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As Good As It Gets

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Being agoraphobic can take a toll on you. For writer, Lauren Cochran(Robin Groves), life in the big city isn't a walk in the park. She's afraid to anywhere. So when she sees her shrink, she rents a mansion in the country. There, she can do her work. However, strange occurrences start to unwind while she's staying there. When she opened the window and stepped out, she is stuck and afraid to move. Her shrink comes by to help, but he's tragically killed trying to help her. More to wonder what has went on in the mansion. It turns out that the mansion has been used as a brothel. And the colonel(John Carradine), has seen his granddaughter living there which has given him a stroke. Two of the locals, a handyman, and the town drunk were responsible for the murders of the prostitutes and other soldiers in the brothel. This movie was a bit of a cross between "The Shining", "The Boogeyman", "The Sentinel", and "The Devonsville Terror". There's plenty of supernatural aura, acts of vengeance and redemption. I liked it very much. Plenty to say. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Lauren Cochran (Robin Groves) is an agoraphobic novelist who leaves the hustle of the bustle of the city to rent an isolated house in the country, where she hopes to concentrate on her next book. Fat chance, for soon after arriving, the writer suffers a series of terrifying visions that lead her to suspect that the place is haunted. She's correct, of course: her new abode, a whorehouse during the war, was the site of a terrible, bloody massacre, and now the spooks want revenge!For a film about a haunted brothel, by a film-maker best known for X-rated 'roughie' porn, The Nesting is surprisingly less exploitative than one might expect, taking a comparatively reserved approach that concentrates more on delivering atmosphere and scares than simple shock value.To director Armand Weston's credit, the result isn't all that bad, with an intriguing basic plot, reasonable central performances, and one or two well constructed death scenes that benefit from the sparse but effective use of gore (the demise of a nasty hick at the hands of a sickle wielding Lauren is especially fun); but although the finished product ain't a total disaster, it's not a complete success either, suffering from a poorly developed script in desperate need of judicious pruning (the film is way overlong at 102 minutes!), a couple of irritating characters (most notably, Lauren's wise-cracking boyfriend Mark), some blatant silliness that should have been fixed before filming commenced (how the hell does Lauren's self-help tape know the layout of her apartment?), and a daft ending that just doesn't know when to quit.It's a shame, because one can't help but feel that with such a salacious premise, the whole affair is something of a wasted opportunity: if Weston had stayed true to himself by allowing his film to be even half as depraved as his X-rated output, The Nesting would have been a far more satisfying film—a sleaze fan's idea of heaven instead of a fairly entertaining, but ultimately forgettable ghost story.5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

As far as early '80s haunted house movies go (there were quite a few, most likely thanks to the box office success of 1979's THE AMITYVILLE HORROR), you could do worse. Neurotic mystery novelist Lauren Cochran (Robin Groves) is suffering from the anxiety disorder agoraphobia; meaning she has panic attacks when put in a crowded or unfamiliar environment. Barely able to leave her New York City apartment, she and her doctor decide the best thing for her mental state is a little peace and quiet in a tranquil setting. Lauren, accompanied by her boyfriend Mark (Christopher Loomis), decides to rent a large house out in the country so she can recover from her condition and begin work on her next novel. Strangely, the large, lakeside home she is compelled to rent looks almost identical to the one pictured on the cover of her last novel "The Nesting;" which was illustrated from her own description. Soon after moving in (Mark has to return to NYC, leaving her all alone), she starts suffering from nightmares and starts seeing ghosts lurking around. What's Lauren's connection to the house and why are the murderous spirits that occupy the place only killing select victims? I noticed skimming through the reviews that some viewers think the first half was stronger than the second. I actually feel the opposite. The first 45 minutes or so were a little shaky and confusing, but I felt the film actually improved and became more interesting during the second and third acts. Thankfully the major plot points are adequately explained with some decent flashbacks. The leading lady is a pretty decent actress, but not quite the sympathetic heroine you'd expect to find in a film like this. The architecture on the house itself is very striking and it makes for a terrific, atmospheric country setting. The horror scenes are adequate, yet not too bloody, and there's some brief nudity and sex also. On the down side, some of the dialogue is awful (especially the supposedly witty lines given to the Mark character at the beginning), the film looks pretty dark, dreary and murky (many scenes are set inside barely lit interiors), there's a visible boom mike and some of the supporting performances are rough.One of the major drawing cards (at least to me) were appearances from prolific character actor/horror cameo king John Carradine and talented and underrated film noir goddess Gloria Grahame, both in small but important co-starring roles. Carradine plays Colonel LeBrun, the wheelchair-bound, sickly owner of the haunted home, while Grahame (who looks astonishingly good for her age and astonishingly good considering she died soon after appearing in this) plays Florinda Costello, the ghostly former brothel madam. Neither has a whole lot of screen time, but do well with what they're given to work with. Fans of either should enjoy their work here. I'd never heard of director Armand Weston before, but it seems like he worked exclusively on X-rated films. He did a fairly good job on this, his only "mainstream" effort.

Lauren Cochran (Robin Groves) is a writer who lives in New York City and lately has been suffering from anxiety attacks, which her Doctor, Webb (Patrick Farrelly) put down to a condition called agoraphobia, which is a fear of leaving the house. Lauren decides to escape Manhattan and head to a small town called Dover Falls to finish her current novel. Her friend Mark Felton (Christopher Loomis) drives her to Dover Falls. They stop by the side of the road, take a break and stretch their legs. Lauren comes across an unusual large octagonal house that she feels she knows. It's exactly the same house she wrote about in one of her previous books entitled 'The Nesting'. And that the cover illustration on the book that she described for the artist to draw is precisely the same as this house she is looking at now, even though she has never been there before. She immediately decides to rent the property. She makes arrangements with the house's owner, a Colonel Lebrun (John Carradine) and his grandson Daniel Griffith (Micheal David Lally) and moves in straight away. That night Lauren has a dream about the house, or was it a hallucination or possibly even ghosts? While visiting, Dr. Webb has an 'accident' and is killed. The local handyman Frank Beasley (Bill Rowley) is mysteriously drowned after trying to attack Lauren. More strange things happen, record players start on their own, words are mysteriously typed onto her work and Lauren continues to see strange people who seem able to just appear and disappear at will. She decides to investigate the house's history, and talks with a local farmer called Abner Welles (David Tabor) who becomes violent towards her when questioned about the house. Lauren becomes more and more unsure if what she has experienced is real, hallucinatory or if indeed there are ghosts inhabiting the house. Co-written and directed by Armand Weston I thought this was a decent enough haunted house horror film. The script by Weston and Daria Price takes quite a long time to establish the situation and is fairly slow going at times. But I have to say it kept me pretty interested and watching right through to the end. One thing that disappointed me was the lacklustre ending, after all the build-up I was hoping for something a little more substantial than what was offered, it just ends up being a bit of a let down and rather pedestrian. Robin Groves was good in the leading role, but I thought Micheal David Lally was awful. There's not much gore in it, just a scythe whacked into someones face, someone is impaled and some gunshot wounds at the end. There's a bit of nudity, but not much. The film looks OK and has a decent atmosphere to it, and the octagonal house is both unusual and cool, I don't think I've ever seen another house like it. If you don't mind a horror film with a slightly slow pace then you could do a lot worse than this, but then I suppose you could probably do a lot better as well. Worth watching, if you can find a cheap copy or catch it on T.V. for free.