What kind of doctor has a shovel and a shop vac in his cinderblock operating room? PROBABLY NOT A VERY REPUTABLE DOCTOR.
Cronenberg’s latest is a nine-minute-long POV film—commissioned for a Cronenberg exhibit at EYE Film Institute in Amsterdam, and kindly put up on YouTube for the exhibit’s duration—and is about a woman (Evelyne Brochu) who claims to have insects growing inside her left breast. In The Nest, she tries to convince a not-very-reputable doctor (Cronenberg) into cutting off said breast—or at least providing an “escape hatch” for the squirming bugs inside. On a scale of one star to four stars, I give this movie 32 GAH NO WHY GODDAMMIT CRONENBERGs.
In other words, The Nest is as skin-crawlingly creepy and awkward and weird as you’d expect from Cronenberg whenever he’s in full-on body horror mode, and you probably shouldn’t watch it at work if your boss doesn’t like short films about topless women who think they have insects growing inside of them.
