Review by Gary Tooze

Production:

Disc:

Video:

Audio:

DVD of the Feature included

Bitrate:

 

Description: The quiet town of North Port is being overrun by cockroaches! Sheriff Tarbell (Franc Luz) believes that genetic experiments being conducted by the INTEC Corporation are the cause. Confronted with a potential disaster, Mayor Johnson (Robert Lansing) calls for help.

When Dr. Hubbard (Terri Treas) from INTEC arrives, she realizes that an innocent experiment has gone terribly wrong. Ordinary cockroaches are turning into creatures with a taste for blood. Worse, the roaches are genetically mutating... literally becoming whatever they eat!

***

A biological experiment goes haywire when meat-eating mutant cockroaches invade an island community and begin to hideously attack its citizens.

 

 

The Film:

Excerpt from Beyond Hollywood located HERE

Image :    NOTE: The below Blu-ray captures were taken directly from the Blu-ray disc.

The Nest - a dubious horror effort arrives on Blu-ray from Shout! Factory.  The image quality shows a bit of textured grit and looks superior to SD... but that is about all. The 1080P, single-layered transfer supports the film. It is in the bastardized 1.78:1 aspect ratio - probably opened-up from the original 1.85:!. This is more and more common nowadays. There is decent detail, modest contrast and a bit of haze that looks to be more a factor of the original production - no fault of the transfer. I didn't see excessive noise and I expect this is a strong replication of the film. This Blu-ray is clean and consistent and the effect visuals benefit from the HD rendering.

CLICK EACH BLU-RAY CAPTURE TO SEE ALL IMAGES IN FULL 1920X1080 RESOLUTION

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We get a reasonable DTS-HD Master 2.0 channel track at 2047 kbps. It has some surprisingly buoyant moments with decent bass in the effects and screams. There is some original music by Rick Conrad - but it didn't impact me enough to recall it. The stereo track exceeded my expectations - obviously no surround but it supported the film well. There are optional English subtitles and my Momitsu has identified it as being a region 'A'-locked.

NOTE: Although the menu says there is a 5.1 surround boost track - it is only a 2.0 channel stereo.

Extras :

 

 

BOTTOM LINE:
There are a lot of gross scenes in The Nest - but, it kinda adds to the whole, complete mess of the film arching toward 'cult' status. I guess it required more T+A. So - yes this is as bad as you might expect although Robert Lansing ('Gary Seven' from TOS) gives it a touch of class... until he dissolves. We can't recommend The Nest - except to those keen on these type of creature-feature mélange.  The Blu-ray supports the film as well as can be expected and the commentary would certainly be suitable for fans. Most everyone else should, probably, steer clear. 

Gary Tooze

January 24th, 2013