Sting

Sting

One cold, stormy night in New York City, a mysterious object falls from the sky and smashes through the window of a rundown apartment building. It is an egg, and from this egg emerges a strange little spider. The creature is discovered by Charlotte, a rebellious 12 year old girl obsessed with comic books. Despite her stepfather Ethan's best efforts to connect with her through their comic book co-creation Fang Girl, Charlotte feels isolated. Her mother and Ethan are distracted by their new baby and are struggling to cope, leaving Charlotte to bond with the spider. Keeping it as a secret pet, she names it Sting.

  • Released:
  • Runtime: 91 minutes
  • Genre: Horror, Thrillers
  • Stars: Ryan Corr, Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell, Robyn Nevin, Noni Hazlehurst, Jermaine Fowler, Rowland Holmes, Danny Kim, Tony J. Black, Silvia Colloca, Alcira Carpio
  • Director: Kiah Roache-Turner
 Comments
  • kingeelwillsavethegnomes-26246 - 1 July 2024
    This Movie Bugs Me
    I was looking forward to seeing this since I first saw the trailer in March or something. Can't deny I'm a sucker for a spider movie, 8-legged freaks and Arachnophobia are pretty great, more focused on comedy but they know when to rank up the tension too.

    This movie had everything it needed to do something good- cast of weird characters who are all stuck in one place, they get picked off one by one until the rest of them figure out what's happening. Not exactly a new set up, I mean, Evil Dead Rise did it last year, but it works. Mostly. Not this time, because Sting doesn't know whether it wants to be a horror film, a soap opera or a one-off show on some kids channel. Everything they did was wrong and didn't fit together. For starters, the name Sting, it was named by the main kid when she looked at a copy of The Hobbit. A story which actually has a giant spider in it, yet she named it after a sword. If this was meant to be a joke, it's trying too hard. As for the characters, not a single one is compelling, you have the main kid, who is a chore to watch, though well acted if it was intentional. The choice to write protagonists who are younger than the age rating for the film never makes sense to me and drags down nearly every movie it occurs in, especially ones like this where the kid has nobody to play off for the most part. It feels like being made to watch 90 minutes of the most obnoxious kid have a temper tantrum. Then there's the Bland family, all of whom survive the events of the in a contrived boring fashion despite at least 2 of them having been subjected to the venomous bite of the spider which causes paralysis, and earlier in the film also caused death. There's some weird old lady twins living in the attic, one of whom is a cartoon character, the other is a played-for-laughs dementia sufferer, which is not as funny as it sounds. Downstairs lives wannabe Jeffrey Dahmer who likes to shine lights on fish and ends up left alive in a spiders web by the protagonists because- dunno. Then there's a Latina woman who has the most interesting backstory of a dead kid that's never expanded upon, then she gets the most brutal death very early on. Should've made her the protagonist. Also appearing is an exterminator guy, our (intended) comedy relief of the piece, who is a very consistent and reasonable character up to the point where it's decided it's time for him to die when he suddenly starts acting like a moron out of nowhere.

    There's not really any story or plot so to speak, it's the tired old 'you're not my real dad, I hate you, oh you did something nice, now you're my dad' schtick for the main part with a spider running around where the adverts would be if this was a tv movie, there's zero comedy in it, though not for lack of trying. And the ending was a rehash of Peter Pan bringing Tinkerbell back to life that would make anyone over the age of 6 lose their lunch, shame the movie is a 15.

    Does not live up to the trailers.
  • mojoguzzi-879-68498 - 13 June 2024
    Topnotch Old School Scifi Horror
    What a treat it was to stumble onto this little gem. Too many horror films today are filled with the same overworked imagery or suffer from screenplays stretched thin to pad inadequate budgets. A diehard horror fan is hard-pressed to find a movie worth sitting even halfway through these days. And some companies purporting to specialize in the genre seem more concerned with fulfilling a social agenda than producing good scary movies.

    STING has none of those problems. The story unfolds in clever turns at a pace that never lags. Despite being set in one main location, the production values are A level, not C or D like most one location films being churned out by cheapjack producers these days.

    The film is pleasantly atmospheric and the special efx are impressive, but what really makes it special is the performance of young Alyla Browne. Already quite accomplished in her career, her latest role in Furiosa: Mad Max should establish her as a superstar. She's amazingly naturalistic and charmingly spunky in Sting, but luckily she's not the only excellent actor in the film. The entire cast is rock solid portraying an array of characters that are unique, comical or quirky without being cliched or one-dimensional.

    Kiah Roache-Turner is equally talented as writer and director, delivering a movie that's Hollywood slick but not formulaic. I can't wait to check out his earlier films, and am eager to see what he does in the future.