Film Review: ‘Sting’ Will Creep and Crawl Its Way into Your Heart

There are two kinds of people in this world. There are those that will hear the premise of writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner’s Sting, which concerns an alien spider rapidly increasing in size and terrorizing a New York apartment complex, and think that sounds like a good bit of fun. And there are others who will either politely or impolitely say “absolutely not,” either because they’re not much for horror movies in the first place, or because the idea of one that focuses so acutely on spiders of any kind sounds deeply unpleasant to their sensibilities. So consider this a warning: if you suffer from arachnophobia, or have a problem with spiders in general, this movie is probably not for you.

For the rest of us, however, this slickly produced creature feature may not expand its ambitions much further beyond what the logline would suggest, but it delivers one hell of a good time within those parameters. Australian filmmaker Roache-Turner is likely best known for a pair of post-apocalyptic zombie flicks (2014’s Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead and 2021’s Wyrmwood: Apocalypse, respectively) that overcome their minimal budgetary limitations with an inventive blend of genres and memorably deployed special effects work. Sting is an overall more polished production, with a tighter genre focus: imagine Alien, but with an enlarged spider in a tenement building, and you’re halfway there. But by making the most of his environment and building up an atmosphere of dread, he crafts a narrative that’s significantly more satisfying than his prior work.

After an amusing cold open (quite literal, given the frigid conditions just outside the central location), the film establishes its interstellar arachnid’s arrival with a stylish opening credits sequence that sees the reasonably-sized creature stalking its way through a dollhouse before encountering our protagonist. Charlotte (Alyla Browne, who will soon appear as a younger version of the title character in Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga), is a rambunctious 12-year-old dealing with the extended absence of her birth father and a lack of attention from her mother (Penelope Mitchell) and her stepfather Ethan (Ryan Corr), who have their hands full with Charlotte’s infant brother.

To his credit, Ethan tries his best to form a connection with the precious preteen. In addition to serving as the building’s handyman, he is also collaborating with her on a comic book called Fang Girl, which he illustrates based on her writing. Though they clearly have similar artistic sensibilities, he still feels significant tension whenever he tries to be more of a dad to her. Neglected for much of the day, Charlotte spends her time absorbed in various creepy comics and her own artwork. Given her penchant for the darker side of life, she forms an immediate attachment to the spider, who she keeps in a jar and names Sting (after Bilbo’s glowing sword in The Hobbit).

It’s only a matter of time before a steady diet of roaches is not enough to sustain her new pet, who has little trouble sneaking out of Charlotte’s room and exploring the apartment via air ducts. As its prey expands from fellow bugs, to fellow pets, to the tenants themselves, Sting grows exponentially in size and threat. Initially cute characteristics, such as its ability to mimic the chirping sound of Charlotte’s social media posts when it wants to be fed, take on a significantly creepier tone when they start echoing through the gradually claustrophobic halls that the cast find themselves trapped in. Brought to life through an appealing mix of VFX work and animatronics courtesy of Weta Workshop (who memorably dealt with similar creatures in King Kong and The Lord of the Rings), the spider slinks around the edges of the frame with a palpable menace. Brad Shield’s roving camerawork pairs especially well with the deliberate editing credited to Jeff Cummings, Luke Doolan, and Roache-Turner, which makes it feel like Sting could be around any corner, ready to strike without warning.

The narrative focus on the family’s disjointed relationship pays dividends in surprising ways as the stakes become increasingly dire, and even if the resolution to their drama is somewhat predictable, it still feels easy to invest in thanks to a pair of committed central performances. Corr effectively demonstrates Ethan’s growing frustration as he is pulled in all directions, attempting to be everything that’s asked of him while struggling to keep his priorities in order. Browne plays a nice balance between angsty hostility and vulnerability, and though she’s no stranger to the kind of histrionics usually demanded of leading ladies in horror, she also showcases a resourcefulness and a resolve once the going gets tough.

Though the film is consistently entertaining and appealingly scary when needed, it is by no means perfect. Anyone who’s seen a similar survival-based creature feature set in a limited location (from Tremors to Krampus to the aforementioned Alien) will probably be able to guess the broad strokes of the story before they happen. And while the leads are strongly fleshed out, some of the supporting characters flirt with racial caricature, particularly the residents played by Silvia Colloca and Danny Kim. An exterminator played by Jermaine Fowler (a horror veteran following last year’s The Blackening) nearly falls into a similar trap, though is fortunately given enough bandwidth to register more as comic relief.

Despite these minor shortcomings, Sting is the kind of genre film that will play like gangbusters to its target audience. The execution is genuinely terrific throughout, with an unsettling atmosphere that takes its time setting the scene yet never drags thanks to an efficient 91-minute runtime. There are plenty of jump scares, though as with the best there is enough tension built up that they never feel cheap. In short, if you’re the kind of person who reacted positively to the plot description in the first paragraph of this review, then this movie will probably be everything you want it to be. And when it comes to giant spider cinema, that’s more than enough.

SCORE: ★★★