Sting

Film: Sting

Year: 2024

Director: Kiah Roache-Turner

Writer: Kiah Roache-Turner

Starring: Alyla Browne, Ryan Corr and Penelope Mitchell

Review:

This was a movie that I knew was coming out, but not when. I saw a review was out from a local critic, who I respect their opinion on horror films. It was one on the list to keep an eye out for. Since I don’t watch trailers, I didn’t know if this was following a spider or a snake. Regardless, I got to go to the Gateway Film Center to check it out. I’ve also now given it a rewatch to see how well it would hold up.

Synopsis: after raising an unnervingly talented spider in secret, 12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne) must face the facts about her pet and fight for her family’s survival when the once-charming creature rapidly transforms into a giant, flesh-eating monster.

Now this starts in a way that I’m not always a fan. It jumps in the middle of things going on. Helga (Noni Hazlehurst) hears something in her vents and walls. We see that she has dementia or Alzheimer’s. There is a note on the wall by the phone that says her name and address. To get rid of what she is hearing, she calls Frank (Jermaine Fowler) who is an exterminator. The page in the phonebook is earmarked so this isn’t the first time. I should say here that he knows this building and that there is also a horrible winter storm.

We then shift days into the past to show us what led there. Charlotte uses the vent system of this rundown apartment building to get around. Her grandmother is Helga and she lives with her sister, Gunter (Robyn Nevin). This one owns the building and she’s cheap, so everything is in disrepair. There is also an infestation of cockroaches. We saw prior to this girl sneaking into the room, a tiny meteor breaking through a window and landing in the dollhouse. It hatches a spider. Charlotte finds it and takes it with her, making it a pet that she names Sting. I’ll come back to this.

Also living in this building is Charlotte’s mother, Heather (Penelope Mitchell). She is seeing Ethan (Ryan Corr) and they have a son together. There is tension here as Ethan isn’t Charlotte’s dad. He loves her though and she feels similar back. They’re working on a comic book together. There is friction here as one of the characters is based on her real father who she adores. He isn’t showing up for her though. Also in the building is Maria (Silvia Colloca), who we get the idea that her family died and she’s all alone with her dog. There’s also Erik (Danny Kim), an odd biology student doing experiments with fish, as well as the two sisters. Ethan serves as the building’s super.

Charlotte puts Sting in a jar and feeds it cockroaches. We see that it is more intelligent than any spider should be. It mimics a sound that Charlotte makes, ensuring that it knows when feeding time is. We see when she sleeps, that it can open its jar. It goes to Gunter’s room and kills her parrot. It doesn’t stop there. It continues to get bigger and sets itself on larger prey, the humans living in this building.

That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the story. Now as I said, coming in I knew that this was going to be an animal attack movie. Confirming that it was a spider ahead of seeing this, I was wondering how they were going to use this idea. Being that it comes from space, which is all I needed to know for this to work. I don’t know if this is given in the trailer, but we learn this within the first 15 minutes. Another thing to set up here, the title has a double meaning. This spider uses a sting to inject venom, but its name also comes from the sword in The Hobbit that was used to kill a spider. It doesn’t necessarily fit. It still works though. There is also the reference, with our lead character being named Charlotte, to the famous children’s book with a spider in it.

Let me then shift over to talking about this family dynamic. This is where the heart of the movie comes from. Charlotte is in a tough spot. Children that are in this position when their parents break up often are. She loves Ethan, but he’s still not her biological father. He doesn’t think he’s doing a good job and still learning. Heather points out true indicators that she does care. He still doesn’t know. There are little comments made between Ethan and Heather about him caring more about the infant, since that is his biological child. This creates tension as stress mounts on him. That causes him to lash out. It doesn’t help that Gunter is rude to him and everyone else. There’s also the added stress of Helga as well.

I think then I should get back over to what everyone is watching this for, this spider killing people. First though, I love that we’re in this rundown apartment building. That gives us cannon fodder in other apartments. There is also this large vent system so Sting can move between floors and rooms with ease. I even like that it sets up that Charlotte does this before the spider even comes into the picture. Then we have this horrible winter storm so we are trapping our characters inside. They can’t leave. It is interesting that the way this spider acts is in the normal range by creating webs, liquifying its victims and eating them while they’re alive. That is terrifying. We are then giving it supernatural abilities being from space where it grows faster than it should and can mimic sounds. That also made this scary. My only issue here is that this comes off campy. Part of that is just the concept. This doesn’t ruin it by any stretch, but just wanted to warn you.

Where I think I’ll go next is filmmaking. I thought that the cinematography was good here to set up this apartment building. There’s almost a labyrinth vibe to it with the duct system and the basement. Also, that creates places where Sting can hide victims who are trapped in webs. What is good there is that it continues to hunt, even when it has captured people. It doesn’t want them to get away, which is good. People will also disappear and there’s not much time for people to notice before the next target. Let’s shift to the effects. CGI is used to bring this spider to life. When it is tiny, that makes sense. What I’ll say is that this looks fine. They don’t linger on it, which works in its favor. That makes it harder to critique. I love using the frame where we see it in the background, blurry before our characters do. I’m a fan there. Other than that, I thought the soundtrack was fine. This did good things with sound design, especially Sting mimicking things, which is messed up in the best way possible as we get deeper into this.

All that is left is acting. I like Browne as our lead. We see that things are confusing and tough when you’re a young teen like she is. She starts feeding Sting, which I can’t blame her. This makes her feel bad though as it gets larger. Corr is good as her stepfather. I feel bad for him and the stress that he goes through trying to make things work. Mitchell is good as our mother and significant other. She loves Ethan, but her children are her focus. Nevin works as this ‘slumlord’. Hazlehurst creates issues with her mental state. Kim and Colloca are good as tenants. I also like Fowler as this exterminator. The acting here isn’t great, but it creates quirky characters that feel real.

In conclusion, I thought this was a fun film. It feels like it is borrowing from The Giant Spider Invasion, just on a smaller and contained scale. We get a solid group of characters. They are trapped in a good setting, ramping up tension since they can’t leave due to the winter storm. Then from there, I love the idea of this spider growing large and attacking them. This is well made. They needed to go CG, but it looks good enough. There is emotion underneath that helped me. This also stressed me out at a pivotal scene, so credit there. This could be too campy for people, but I enjoyed my time here. I’d recommend it if what I said sounds good. I’m glad I gave this a second watch as my score came up slightly the second time around, solidifying where I was.

My Rating: 8 out of 10