STING (2024)

Genre: Horror/Thriller
Director: Kiah Roache-Turner
Cast: Ryan Corr, Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell, Jermaine Fowler
Runtime: 1 hr 32 mins
Rating: NC16 (Some Coarse Language and Violence)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 13 June 2024

Synopsis: STING spins a web of thrilling terror, as a young girl’s pet spider transforms into a giant flesh-eating monster forcing her to fight for her family’s survival.

Movie Review:

Sting makes for a fun throwback to spider monster movies liked Arachnophobia and Eight Legged Freaks. Despite the cheesy premise and promised horror attacks, it’s a B movie that ultimately disappoints than impressed.

Set in snowy New York but shot far away in Australia, an angsty teenage girl Charlotte (Alyla Browne) who loves to roam the vents of the apartment building she stays in adopted a small spider that happens to come from outer space.

The spider is named Sting after Frodo's sword in The Lord of the Rings. Charlotte feeds Sting a diet of cockroaches and it grows at an accelerated rate and even mimics sounds she makes. It’s weird she doesn’t find it anything out of the ordinary despite warning from a deadpanned, biology expert neighbour, Erik (Danny Kim).

Of course, we are here for the attacks and Sting deliberately withhold the nasty, exciting parts. Perhaps due to budget constraint, we are treated to a generous portion of family drama involving his stepfather, Ethan (Ryan Corr), her mother, Heather and her baby brother. There’s even her dementia suffering grandmother in the picture. Conveniently, Ethan works as a caretaker for the building and is also busy working as a comic book artist.

Basically, Ethan is an overtaxed father figure, trying his best to take care of the needs of his family and being the peacemaker in the disputes between his wife and rebellious stepdaughter. All these family melodrama makes you forget about the presence of Sting monetarily though the creature carried out a horrific gruesome killing of a seemingly widow in the middle of all the quarrels.

Since this is not a building-up-to-a-Jaws or Jurassic Park kind of movie, the main character Sting got shortchanged in the process given the creature by Weta Workshop (Lord of the Rings, Avatar) has a total of less than 8 minutes of screen time. The fact that the movie attempts to establish Ethan and Charlotte as the central characters or the heroes meant to confront the creature is not convincing enough. On the contrary, a funny wisecracking exterminator named Frank (Jermaine Fowler) deserved to be credited as the unsung hero of the flick.

Likely inspired by Alien, the setup of Sting in a confined apartment building gives off similar vibes of claustrophobia though the various setups isn’t that clever compare to the Ridley Scott classic. You got to admit director and writer Kiah Roache-Turner indeed introduces several scenes of dark humour and brutal kills, some effective while others falter. The most tense sequence however happens in the finale whereby the characters are hit by paralysis and the suspense is killing.

If you are a fan of creepy crawly creature stuff and not expecting much, then Sting might be a temporary source to quench your thirst for creature horror flicks. For those expecting a polished story, interesting characters and a little more thrills and spills, then Sting is hardly worth your time.

Movie Rating:

(Sting is bigger, meaner and faster but doesn’t amounts to anything memorable or original)

Review by Linus Tee