Neither a biopic of the recently retired, face-painted pro wrestler, nor a movie about the former lead singer of the Police, Sting is instead a movie about a spider. As even the most amateur arachnologist might tell us, spiders don’t sting — they bite — so is this a particularly egregious case of a studio executive mislabeling a project, hoping for bonus SEO? Not quite. The script’s a bit smarter than that.
Sting is the name given to a spider by a 12 year-old girl who makes her a pet, and it’s a reference to The Hobbit. Seeing the spider as a righteous killer of cockroaches, and all the better to become the best-buddy-in-a-jar of an angsty tween, the girl — whose name is of course Charlotte — names the bug after Bilbo Baggins’ goblin-slaying sword.
Some Bug!
Many a whimsical children’s book has been written about a pet growing oversized, with Clifford the Big Red Dog one of the more notable examples. Most of them simply involve comedic inconvenience, rather than, say, the amount of meat Clifford would get hungry for at that scale.
When the pet is a flesh-eating alien spider, however, that issue isn’t something to be avoided, but relished. Nobody’s watching this movie and dreaming of hugging Sting, but many, undoubtedly, are looking forward to gory death scenes. They’ll get ’em.
With the action confined to a New York apartment building during a massive blizzard, Sting plays a bit like Die Hard, if John McClane were a spider, and the story told from the point of view of the criminals trying to kill him. In this case, their motive’s a bit more reasonable, as that spider just keeps eating and growing. Perhaps if there’s a sequel, she’ll get to kaiju size.
Duct Ails, Woo-hoo!
The building itself is one of those old ones with human-sized air ducts (naturally), no elevator, a scary boiler room, and apartments that have been lived in forever by old people with all their family heirlooms. Charlotte (Alyla Browne) travels through the vents for fun and theft, raiding neighboring apartments’ dolls and other objects. It’s in a dollhouse not her own that she finds Sting, who came to earth on a tiny meteor that promptly opened up like Audrey II. The parallels don’t end there. Sting may not yell “Feed me!” but she quickly learns to mimic an in-tune whistle that becomes shorthand for a dinner bell.
Though the story follows the basic creature-feature template, as the title creature gradually gets bolder and bigger, writer-director Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood) wants us to care for the characters in jeopardy as well. He just can’t decide which one should be his protagonist. At first it’s Charlotte, with the obvious parallels to Little Shop of Horrors’ Seymour, and the absent father factor that makes so many movie kids angsty. For a long stretch in the middle, however, the focus shifts to her stepdad Ethan (Ryan Corr), a comics artist by night and building handyman by day.
Ethan’s Hunt
The script is at its satirical best when Ethan is the lead. It’s hard out there for a stepdad, don’tcha know, when you have to lay down the law against venomous pet bugs. Plus Charlotte is funnier from the outside looking in, as a parody of how reckless 12 year-olds can be incredibly thoughtless in dangerous ways. When she becomes the focus, her broken-home sadness may be relatable, but her initial ignorance in the face of grave danger, less so. Thankfully, she gets a clue before the story’s done, and indeed, she’s pretty quick to turn on her beloved pet the moment she realizes Sting gives no damns. Ah, mood swings.
Evil Dead Rise did a version of this formula that was rawer and more brutal; one lengthy death scene aside, Sting is more like Tales From the Crypt, with its colors and fog heightening the reality just a touch so it’s more fun gore than terror. The effects are as sticky-yucky as they ought to be, with a trigger warning for dead pets, though said animal corpses look just a touch Muppet-y, possibly so as not to upset animal guardians too badly.
Itsy Bitsy Spiderverse
Roache-Turner probably won’t become a household name as a result of this formulaic fun, but nor should he be embarrassed. Sting may be as predictable as any slasher movie, but delivers enough of the spider-goods to satisfy, up to and including the inevitable sequel tease.
SCORE:7/10
ComingSoon’s review policy defines a 7 as “Good. A successful piece of entertainment that is worth checking out, but it may not appeal to everyone.”
