STING (2024). Review by Steve Kirkham

STING (2024)

4 stars
StudioCanal. Digital 15th July. Blu Ray and DVD 15th August

STING is a fun creature feature horror with an SF tinge to it. It opens mid story as a batty old dear Helga (Noni Hazelhurst), clearly suffering from dementia, calls in an exterminator (Jermaine Fowler) as she hears noises in the walls. Predictably, whatever it is is far more dangerous than expected and he ends up dead, whilst the old woman returns to her knitting, oblivious to what has bloodily transpired.

We then spin back 4 days to tell the story itself. The setting is an apartment building – the classic enclosed location setting for a horror – home to Ethan (Ryan Corr), who is an aspiring comic book artist and also the buildings maintenance manager. He lives there with his wife Heather (Penelope Mitchell), their baby son and his stepdaughter Charlotte (Alyla Browne)… presumably named after a certain E.B. White character? Also in the building are previously met Helga – Heather’s Mum – and her somewhat stern and slightly scary live-in carer Gunter (Robyn Nevin).

12 year old Charlotte likes nothing more than crawling round in the buildings air ducts (you know the kind that are usually huge in the movies… are they really that big in real life?). Entering her Grandma’s flat via this crawl space, she finds a small spider which she pops into a jar and secretly takes back to her room. The audience knows it has come from outer space – which might explain the fact that it rapidly grows in size and can mimic sounds. You know this isn’t going to end well.

Inevitably, as it begins to balloon in proportions, it escapes and begins to attack the inhabitants.

Granted this isn’t going to win any prizes for originality, with echoes of ARACHNOPHOBIA (1990) and maybe even a touch of ALIEN (1979), but nonetheless writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner handles the film well, with a strong cast delivering his script – especially Alyla Browne, who you may have seen as the younger version of the titular FURIOSA. Shot in Oz but set in the US, this has effective work by WETA bringing the monster alien arachnid to life. Entertaining if a bit throwaway.

Steve Kirkham