Stranger Things and The Nest

After finishing the first season of Stranger Things (2016-) on Netflix, I was impressed with the stylish homages to 1980s films from Spielberg (Poltergeist, E.T., Jaws, Close Encounters, etc.) and John Carpenter (Halloween, The Thing, etc.) (among others), as well as the novels of Stephen King. We see overt references to Cujo in one scene, and the logo broaches Christine. State Trooper O'Bannons name also references Alien, written by Dan O'Bannon, and Chief Hooper's name broaches Predator. These are just a few of the homages in the series, but they also point to one of the touch points for horror--monstrous nature. Much of Stranger Things draws on skeptical views of science found in horror and sci fi films, highlighting a mad scientist and monster created by his flawed experiments. The wooded "Indiana" (shot in Georgia) setting amplifies its themes, especially when the "underneath" space is introduced. These same monstrous nature ideas are explored explicitly in another 1980s film--The Nest (1988)

The Nest explores the possible disastrous consequences of a biological experiment that turns roaches into flesh-eating fiends. The Nest 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. 

The Nest also constructs scientists as monsters when Intec sends an entomologist, Dr. Morgan Hubbard (Terri Treas), to the island to examine the devoured dog. Dr. Morgan serves as a typical representative of the inhuman and perhaps “mad” scientist seen in most classic monster movies. Dr. Hubbard’s response to these incidents emphasizes the negative portrait of science and scientists in the film. Instead of the fear felt by the rest of the community, Dr. Hubbard seems enamored by the roaches and explicitly anthropomorphizes them. For example, when the cockroaches attack a trapped cat, she exclaims, “very brave, very strange creatures,” a point emphasized by the few predators that can threaten the cockroach. These strengths add to the town’s danger but also draw on cockroach mythology. 

Because they have been genetically modified in an Intec lab, the roaches have developed new powers, more concretely illustrating human and god-like qualities associated with them. Because she has produced them, Dr. Hubbard embraces these new superior but deadly qualities, naming them nymph cockroaches. She lauds their ability to reproduce without the contributions of male counterparts, but when she puts her gloved hand near them in a large lab container, they quickly bite it, highlighting their move from human prey to predator. As a “mad” scientist, however, she seems sexually excited by the mangling of her hand, refusing to remove it until Elias pulls it out before the roaches devour it. Despite these warning signs, Dr. Hubbard tells Elias she can control the roaches and asks for twenty-four hours to solve the problem. 

Beth’s examination of Elias’s papers begins to reveal the truth about these cockroaches’ genetic alteration. Instead of condos, Intec has built a research facility where, according to Hubbard, her experiments are benevolent rather than destructive and meant to create cockroaches that will destroy all other roaches and then die without reproducing. Instead the cockroaches have grown so powerful that even a lethal pesticide can’t destroy them. A solution arises when they realize the roaches have become social animals and must have a nest and a queen to guide them.

The final sinister scenes of the movie emphasize a possible solution to the horror of this now monstrous nature. As Beth explains, if they destroy the caves, they will destroy the nest, suggesting that if they destroy the horror setting, the monstrous insect horror will also disappear. The roaches all go toward the queen in the caves like “a collective unconscious,” making an overt connection to an anthropomorphized cockroach mythology. In the cave where the nest is hidden, Dr. Hubbard is destroyed by a roach figure built out of multiple human skeletons. Tarbell and Beth escape the cave before it explodes, and the two kiss, an ending that perhaps satisfactorily resolves the insect conflict in the film but leaves gaps in the love triangle connecting with it. In The Nest, both science and the cockroach become monstrous, but only the bugs and the mad scientist die, perhaps signifying the need to destroy our worst selves. In Stranger Things, science also destroys.