The Nesting

Lauren, a New York City novelist with agoraphobia, rents a stately Victorian mansion in upstate New York from physicist Daniel Griffith and his ailing grandfather, Colonel Lebrun. Almost immediately she begins to notice strange noises, cold drafts, and inexplicable sensations that make the big house feel alive. The move itself becomes a test of her fears, and she hopes this new setting will spark her writing.

When Lauren first meets Colonel Lebrun, he suffers a sudden stroke at the sight of her, leaving him fragile and hospitalized. His reaction convinces her that the house is haunted or cursed in some way. She experiences eerie dreams of women lounging in rooms she has not yet explored.

Lauren discovers that the home’s image appears in her own novel, the Nesting, as an illustration of a house eerily like the one she rented. The coincidence unsettles her and blurs the lines between fiction and reality. The discovery intensifies her belief that the mansion harbors a past that refuses to stay silent.

Curious about the turret at the peak, Lauren climbs to investigate and ends up trapped outside on the narrow window ledge. She has a vision of a woman inside the house, as if the rooms themselves are watching her. The danger of the height compounds her anxiety and confirms her sense that she is being watched.

Dr. Webber, Lauren's psychiatrist, arrives to help her navigate her growing paranoia. He attempts a rescue during her perilous moment on the ledge but is killed in the attempt, leaving her more isolated and frightened. The incident confirms that dangerous forces are at work in the mansion.

Days later, Lauren is attacked by Frank Beasley, the handyman, in a brutal assault that seems to defy explanation as he levitates. He flees in terror after the encounter, and later is found dead in the pond, his truck containing the corpses of two women. He apparently saw the same apparitions haunting the house and was pulled under by ghostly hands. The event ties the handyman's violence to the house’s dark history.

Seeking answers, Lauren questions Abner Welles, a local drunk with a questionable reputation who seems to know something about the house. He becomes erratic and violent when pressed, and chases her in his car. The confrontation ends with a car crash that forces Lauren to flee on foot.

After the crash, Lauren hides in a barn to escape Abner’s pursuit. The old man eventually finds her and, in a tense moment, attempts to attack her with a pitchfork. An unseen force seems to yank the weapon from his hands, intensifying the sense that spectral forces are protecting her.

Seizing the opportunity, Lauren stabs Abner through the head with a scythe, killing him and ending the immediate threat. The act marks a grim turning point as the house's past violence closes in on the present. Her resolve to uncover the truth hardens.

Lauren’s visions in the house grow more vivid, with precognitive dreams that hint at the past linked to her current experiences. The supernatural atmosphere thickens as she starts to piece together how the living and the past are entwined. She remains determined to survive long enough to uncover the truth.

Colonel Lebrun finally explains the house's WWII history: it was a former brothel where Frank Beasley and Abner murdered several prostitutes and soldiers and dumped their bodies in the nearby pond. The revelation connects the hauntings to real acts of violence. The pond becomes a haunting symbol tying past crimes to the present.

In a hallucinatory sequence, Lauren meets Florinda, the madame of the brothel, who reveals a chilling truth: Lauren is Florinda's granddaughter. Florinda explains that the infant Lauren survived the murders, making her the living connection to the house's brutal past. The revelation deepens the sense that the past is entwined with her own fate.

At the end, Lauren experiences a vivid hallucination in which her manuscript catches fire as Frank’s truck crashes into the house and ignites it. She watches the events unfold in the vision and then returns to reality, stumbling out of the house at dawn. The film ends with her stepping into the early morning light, having been changed by what she has learned.