Contained Spider Infestation Flick Sting (2024) Boasts Scares, Laughs, and Modern School Craft

Title: Sting

First Non-Festival Release: April 12, 2024 (Theatrical Release)

Director: Kiah Roache-Turner

Writer: Kiah Roache-Turner

Runtime: 91 Minutes

Starring: Ayla Browne, Ryan Corr, Noni Hazlehurst

Where to Watch: Check out where to find it here

Spiders occupy a certain space in human stories. In children’s books and tales, spiders are anthropomorphized in hopes of teaching kids important life lessons while hopefully making them seem less scary. In other films, they are killing machines that want to consume us as quickly as possible.

Obviously, Sting leans into the latter category. After a meteor strikes through an apartment complex window and into an unassuming dollhouse, young Charlotte (Ayla Browne) quickly captures it inside a matchbox to take back to her room. Once there, she begins caring for it: feeding it, teaching it a feeding signal, and showing anyone who listens what it is capable of doing to cockroaches. All is fun and games until the spider starts growing at an alarming rate and breaks free from its flimsy enclosure, threatening the inhabitants of the complex.

Fun, goopy, spider attack horror with heart, Sting is a solid addition to the recent creature feature resurgence of nature’s creepiest eight-legged critter.

Spiders are back, baby! Between Sting and the other April release in the States, Infested, it is clear that there is a hunger for making creepy crawlies scary once more. Boasting capable special effects, a mixture of practical and computer generated, the big baddie in Sting has enough texture to convincingly feel real in the snowed-in Brooklyn walk up. It’s always refreshing to see modern films mix new technology with old staples to make their visions come to life, and Sting is no different. Using a mixture of puppetry, practical effects, and cgi, Sting works because the spiders feel menacing and not like they were added in post-production as an afterthought.

Its impressive effects are one thing, but they would be nothing without the story and characters behind them. Tying the film together is the central contested relationship of daughter-father figure duo Charlotte and Ethan. Another precocious child dueling out with a dumb-founded father may sound irritating given the recent trends of the last decade or so in child-centric adult horror films, but Sting does it quite well. There is more bite and tenderness behind Charlotte’s love-hate relationship with Ethan. They have shared interests in comics and good banter, but it doesn’t get too on the nose or serve as nostalgia bait. Their fights feel real, coming from a place of exacerbation, disbelief, and frustration. It’s compelling because it’s messy but also nuanced. There isn’t this air that Charlotte hates him simply for existing. Sting posits that it is more complicated than that. She appreciates Ethan for being there despite longing for her biological father. The push and pull make for a great companion piece to the ever-growing problem running amok in their apartment complex, without drawing too much attention away from the spidery goodness.

While the rest of the cast does well enough, Ayla Browne’s portrayal of Charlotte makes for a fun and unexpected choice for protagonist in this contained creature feature. When children are given the spotlight in horror, odds are audience members are weary that the film might lean down the recent trend of crafting exhaustingly precocious mouth pieces for main characters. Sting works around the expectation exceptionally well. Charlotte is capable but makes mistakes. She is resourceful and utilizes her good memory and nerve to stave off the creature, but she isn’t overpowered in her defenses. At her core, Charlotte is a child that seeks out validation from her parental figures in the midst of the painful life reality of losing her father.

Despite being a largely entertaining jaunt, there are a few moments where it doesn’t quite hit the soaring highs it is capable of reaching. Stilted dialogue, either from iffy performances or cliched writing, makes for some painfully unfunny moments drawing the viewer out of the film. Going further, Sting tends to deploy an inordinate amount of plot armor to the central family in surviving their terrifying ordeal. It’s frustrating how easily the [mostly people of color] neighbors get picked off one-by-one, but the inaction of the family does little to lead to their demise. Of course, Charlotte wouldn’t have her Ellen Ripley moment without it, but it stretches believability given the spider’s ferocity at this point in the film.

Even though it doesn’t quite stick as well as its recent sister release, Sting still does a solid job of standing out from the hordes of critter attack horror films that have flopped in the past few decades. Its emotional core works even when the film manufactures sweeter moments than one might assume. Strong puppetry and practical effects help the giant arachnid feel real, even if it does veer into cartoon territory every now and then. Writer director Kiah Roache-Turner delivers on his claustrophobic premise with enough thrills and cheer to serve as a wintertime staple for spider enthusiasts, or phobics, for years to come.

Overall Score? 7/10