Movies
‘The Nest’ Promo Teaser Unveils New Psychological Horror from ‘[REC]’ Producer Filmax
Filmax, the Barcelona-based studio behind [REC] and The Nameless, is bringing new psychological horror movie The Nest to the Cannes market, Variety reports today.
Directing The Nest is Hugo Stuven (Solo) from a script by Santiago Lallana (Solo), César de Nicolás and Stuven.
The horror movie follows “Marta, who is so obsessed with protecting her family from the terrifying outside world that she keeps her mother and young son locked in their mountain village home. Everything seems to go well until one day a man arrives, intent on destroying everything Marta has built.”
Michelle Jenner (Bird Box: Barcelona) stars.
“’The Nest’ has all the elements of a classic suspense movie and the story it tells of what goes on behind the closed doors of one family is both disturbing and terrifying,” producer Laura Fernández at Filmax told Variety.
“A perverse, cold and calculating woman, convinced she’s doing what’s necessary to protect her family, keeps her mother and young son locked up inside the house,” she adds. “The constant sense of unease makes it both captivating and horrifying. It’s a story that takes place inside one house, within one family, but one which could, unfortunately, be splashed across the pages of any newspaper tomorrow.”
The Nest goes into production soon, but in the meantime Filmax is bringing a promo reel to Cannes market for potential buyers. It’s a strategy that the studio employed on Jaume Balagueró’s 2002 English-language horror movie Darkness, a breakout U.S. hit for Miramax starring Anna Paquin and Lena Olin. The Nest‘s promo reel is shot in English, but Filmax notes that The Nest will be in Spanish.
The reel introduces a mysterious box that suggests something may be inside it.
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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