In Sting, a mini meteorite crashes through a window in an apartment block in South Brooklyn. After landing in a dolls house, the meteorite opens, and out crawls a spider.
Moments later, the spider is discovered by Charlotte – a 12-year-old girl who lives in the building. Intrigued about the creature, Charlotte decides to keep it as a pet.
After feeding the spider, which Charlotte names ‘Sting’, the arachnid begins to grow rapidly in size. Sting then moves around the apartment block, looking for new prey, and putting the residents’ lives in danger.
Written and directed by Kiah Roache-Turner, Sting is a creature feature starring Ryan Corr, Alyla Browne, and Jermaine Fowler. The movie tells the story of a ravenous spider which goes on a rampage in an apartment block, eating anything it can sink its teeth into.
Sounds kind of fun, doesn’t it? It does, but unfortunately it’s not half as enjoyable as its B-movie premise might suggest.
After a decent opening scene, which gives the impression Sting will be a highly enjoyable, and possibly amusing romp, the film stumbles significantly. Instead of daft fun, Sting becomes too serious for its own good, and what follows is a by-the-numbers horror picture which is fine in places but is only ever so-so at best.
Sting’s biggest problem is that it’s largely quite dull. The film isn’t a total snooze-fest, so don’t think that it is, but it’s far from exciting either and it lacks any real energy.
The movie has a very simple premise and it never really expands upon this. As such, all you get in Stingis around 90-minutes of ‘human vs. spider’ storytelling and that’s about it.
Now, this might not be a problem if the film offered up some witty dialogue, some dynamic action scenes, or compelling characters to gloss over the simple script, but sadly it doesn’t. The dialogue is mostly humourless, the action scenes are nothing new, and the characters are bland.
In fact, there’s not one character in the movie who is even remotely interesting. As such, the film can’t even utilise any of its core players to build up suspense or tension, because all of the humans are forgettable.
Where Sting works best is in the gore department and the creep-factor. When the spider is stalking its way around the apartment block, or when the residents are being wrapped up in cocoons, Sting is far more appealing.
Sure, the quality of the CGI spider varies considerably, moving between scary and ropey, but a great deal of effort has been put in to highlight the horror of the creature. As such, if you have any kind of dislike for spiders, then Sting will leave you feeling suitably unsettled.
As with all spider horrors, Sting fails to live up to the benchmark set out by classic horror-comedy, Arachnophobia, and it’s also not as good as the recent French horror, Infested, which deals with the similar theme of arachnids in an apartment block. However, as a B-movie spider flick, which knows it is B-movie fare, it’s passable for the right audience.
This isn’t the kind of film which is going to be packing in the crowds at the cinema, and I expect it’ll do much better on streaming services or video-on-demand platforms than it will at the flicks, but for those who like this type of horror it may scratch the occasional itch. Should you wish to check out Sting, the movie is currently playing in UK cinemas.
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