The Nest 1988: Part I

The Nest (1988) copies Alien (1979) with its focus on the corporate science connection, ultimately leading to the discovery of a queen and her brood hidden deep in a cave outside an idyllic California coastal town. The film serves as a warning against genetic modifications of cockroaches, a transformation that turns bugs into horrifically anthropomorphized monsters. Negative associations with the insects heighten their monstrous qualities as they take center stage from the film’s opening until its closing denouement. These cockroaches are first established as pests that must be eradicated but transform into monsters that may ultimately destroy humanity instead.

The film opens in the small harbor town of North Port where Sheriff Richard Tarbell’s (Franc Luz) switchboard officer has been getting strange calls about missing animals, calls that are immediately connected to insects when Tarbell finds a cockroach in his coffee at a diner counter. The presence of cockroaches is also reinforced when the librarian reveals that something—mice or insects—has eaten all of the binding out of her library books.

The central cockroach drama, however, intertwines with a subplot of the film, a love triangle Tarbell creates between himself and two women, the diner’s owner Lillian (Nancy Morgan) and his previous girlfriend Elizabeth (Lisa Langlois). The reigniting of Tarbell and Elizabeth’s romance begins to solve the mystery broached by the cockroach evidence. When Elizabeth takes a walk toward the hideout of their youth, she finds a “no trespassing” sign labeled “Intec Development.” A German Shepherd’s cries of agony stop her, and when she reaches him, his flesh has been eaten down to the bone. Tarbell investigates and retrieves something that looks like insect droppings on the dog, yet village mayor Elias urges Tarbell to hold off on searching the Intec property for more evidence. He claims Intec is building condominiums to bring revenue to the island.