You’re going to need a bigger upside down glass…
If your phobias tend towards the arachno-end of the spectrum then you might want to look away now as STING scuttles out of the dusty corners of the room and into cinemas to offer a good old fashioned creepy crawly creature feature.
Having burned its way through the atmosphere like a miniature meteorite, a, a small egg crashes into the storeroom of a Brooklyn New York apartment building, hatching a tiny spider who’s immediately found and adopted by 12-year-old Charlotte (Aylya Browne), a disaffected youngster who’s struggling with a new stepfather and a baby stepbrother who’s taking up what little free time her parents have. But as the spider grows hungrier and hungrier and bigger and bigger, Charlotte finds herself fighting not just for her life but the lives of every resident of the apartment building.
The film’s plot is cunningly contrived to keep the action contained. An unexpected ice storm traps the characters indoors (although still permits exterminators to call) which adds a sense of isolation and tension to proceedings. There’s also an improbably comprehensive and roomy ventilation system connecting all the apartments, which ensures protagonists and antagnosits alike can move around the building with ease. It’s gimmicky, for sure, but it does at least allow for things to move at pace and there’s very little time wasted in getting down to some serious spider savagery.
Aylya Browne is the heart of the movie and she provides not only some of its funnier moments (a highlight is trying to decide what to name her new eight-legged pet and her eyes alighting on a couple of books by J R R Tolkein, leading her, of course, to name her spider…after Bilbo’s sword) but also gives her character an emotional grounding that transitions convincingly from defiantly curious child to desperately determined survivor, imbuing the character with a blend of innocence and resolve. Frank (Jermaine Fowler), an itinerant exterminator, injects some knowing incredulity to the mix while Ryan Corr and Penelope Mitchell are weighed down by having to try and crowbar an underdeveloped “blended family” subplot into what should be, to all intents and purposes, a stripped back b-movie.
The brisk pace leaves little room for deep emotional exploration, making some critical moments feel rushed and unearned. Heather (Mitchell), for instance, is underutilized, her backstory and motivations barely sketched out. Similarly, Ethan (Ryan Corr) is presented as a well-meaning stepfather but it doesn’t evolve much beyond surface-level kitchen sink drama and some late in the day heroics, while the quirky collection of other residents are likewise underused, missing opportunities for richer, more nuanced storytelling.
The practical effects, crafted by WETA Workshop, add a tangible terror to the monstrous spider, enhanced by the decision to keep the creature obscured and only partially glimpsed for much of the run time. STING makes a valiant attempt to counterbalance the horror with humour, borrowing elements and even character archetypes from the likes of GREMLINS and CRITTERS but there’s an unevenness to its tone as if it can’t quite commit to one or the other. The opening scenes are fairly light-hearted but so much so that when the first big kill happens, it’s jarringly gruesome in its execution. It’s fine, but it feels out of keeping with the film up to that point. As it reaches its climax, the film nods to both ALIENS and THE TERMINATOR but its never more than a cute homage and a knowing callback respectively. It either needed to be funnier or more ferocious (the former feels like it would have been the smarter choice) but in trying to be both, it manages neither.
Still, STING is a solid if unspectacular entry in the creature feature genre, offering enough decent thrills to entertain horror fans, especially those with arachnophobia, even if its undercooked family dynamics and uneven tone prevent it from achieving greatness.
