Welcome to Maine: Come for the Lobster, Stay for the Organ-Liquefying Cockroaches
“They Nest” (a.k.a. Creepy Crawlers, because sometimes honesty really is the best title) is one of those late-night, straight-to-SyFy-before-SyFy-was-SyFy horror flicks that asks the daring question: what if cockroaches weren’t gross enough already? The answer: give them pincers, make them burrow into your body like drunken real estate developers, and unleash them on a small fishing community in Maine.
And boy, does it go exactly the way you’d expect: lots of screaming, lots of bugs crawling into places you’d rather not think about, and a storyline so flimsy you could use it as a roach motel.
Dr. Ben Cahill: Hero or Human Bug Bait?
Our protagonist, Dr. Ben Cahill (Thomas Calabro), is an ER doctor with a drinking problem, a crumbling marriage, and apparently zero ability to keep his cool when someone starts bleeding out in front of him. His bosses decide he needs a break—because clearly, when you can’t handle your job in a hospital, the next logical step is to head to a creepy abandoned island house in Maine. Nothing screams “healthy coping mechanisms” like sulking in your ex-wife’s property while ignoring the fact that your walls are crawling with mutant roaches.
Cahill’s personality is a mix of self-pity, stubble, and awkward flirtation with Nell (Kristen Dalton), who seems attracted to him despite his entire aura saying, “I’ll cry into a whiskey bottle while you pack your things.”
The Villains: Roaches with Career Ambitions
Here’s the pitch: ordinary cockroaches are disgusting, sure, but what if they were red, had pincers, could fly, and were also enthusiastic about real estate development inside your body? These roaches don’t just crawl around looking for crumbs—they liquefy your organs, nest inside you, and then burst out like they’re auditioning for Alien: The Maine Edition.
Imagine the most revolting thing you’ve ever seen in your kitchen, multiply it by ten, and give it a taste for your pancreas. That’s the They Nest roach. And yes, the practical effects are as slimy and gross as you’d hope… though they’re also about as convincing as a rubber toy from a Halloween clearance bin.
Small-Town Paranoia: Or, How to Blame the Outsider
In true horror movie fashion, the locals don’t believe Cahill when he says, “Hey, guys, these bugs are eating us from the inside out.” Instead, they assume he’s the problem, because apparently if you’re a new face in town and people start exploding with bugs, it must be your fault. The mob eventually locks him and Nell in jail, which is exactly what you want to do in the middle of a cockroach apocalypse: remove your only doctor from circulation.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Hobbs (played with peak grumpy-old-man energy by John Savage) gets locked in a basement and eaten alive, because in movies like this, the sheriff’s lifespan is always shorter than a fly’s in a frog pond.
The Roach Motel: Population—Everyone
The film has a greatest-hits collection of bug-related deaths. We get:
-
Roaches nesting in barns because apparently they like their liquefied organs with a side of hay.
-
Locals turned into walking buffets, bursting open like gruesome piñatas.
-
Flying roach swarms, because someone decided the only thing worse than roaches in your cupboards is roaches blotting out the sun.
At one point, a kid goes missing and is found surrounded by his dead parents, which is less “heartwarming rescue” and more “therapy bills forever.” If Arachnophobia made you squirm, They Nest will make you want to fumigate your entire existence.
The Final Showdown: Bugs vs. Boat Gasoline
Naturally, the climax involves our survivors—Cahill, Nell, and a couple of locals who managed not to get hollowed out like gourds—trying to escape by boat. Because yes, when facing a horde of flying, mutating, Maine-ruining cockroaches, the best strategy is to sit in an open vessel in the middle of the ocean.
Predictably, the roaches attack the boat, so Cahill and crew overturn it and set a fuel pump on fire. Cue bargain-bin explosion that incinerates the swarm and probably any chance this island’s fishing industry had of surviving. Just when you think it’s over, the movie drops the horror sequel cliché: one of the bugs has already made it to the mainland. Translation: Maine’s problems are now everybody’s problems.
Performances: As Wooden as the Dock
Let’s not kid ourselves: nobody watches a cockroach horror film for the acting. But even by those standards, the performances here range from “reading off a cue card” to “please, someone kill me off so I can go home.” Thomas Calabro spends most of the movie staring blankly into the middle distance, as if he’s trying to remember his lines or wondering how his career ended up in bug hell.
Dean Stockwell shows up long enough to collect a paycheck and look perpetually annoyed. Kristen Dalton does her best with the “girlfriend who screams and occasionally helps” role, and John Savage phones in his sheriff duties with the enthusiasm of a man who just realized his agent hates him.
Special Effects: Roach Rave on a Budget
The special effects are equal parts disgusting and hilarious. The cockroaches are occasionally creepy when they’re skittering around in shadows. But whenever the movie tries to show them up close, it looks like someone glued plastic pinchers onto a Madagascar hissing cockroach and said, “Yep, terrifying.” The gore, however, leans into the gross-out factor: melting skin, burrowing bugs, and enough goo to make you swear off pudding cups for life.
It’s the kind of movie where you can almost smell the roaches, which is both a compliment and a warning.
Themes (Yes, Really): Divorce, Booze, and Bugs
Beneath all the bug mayhem, the movie desperately tries to give Cahill a redemption arc. He starts as a washed-up doctor drowning his sorrows, and ends as a man who burns an entire swarm alive and rescues a kid. It’s supposed to show growth, but honestly, the only character who grows in this film is the roach population. If there’s a lesson here, it’s that alcohol ruins careers, divorce ruins lives, and cockroaches ruin everything.
Final Thoughts: Exterminate This Movie
They Nest is one of those films that tries to be a gross-out creature feature but ends up being an unintentional comedy about terrible life choices and worse extermination methods. It’s neither scary nor smart, but it is entertaining in a “watch with pizza and beer while yelling at the screen” kind of way.
The roaches may liquefy organs, but the real victim here is your patience.
