Sting
The residents of a Brooklyn building are targeted by an alien spider in a humdrum and very silly horror film.
Out of Charlotte’s web…
Most of the world’s more deadly spiders tend to be smaller than their terrifying cousins. The huge Goliath birdeater is harmless to humans, preferring to nibble on worms and various insects (and occasionally birds). Yet the more petite funnel-web should be avoided at all costs. Spiders have been given a bad rap by popular culture yet are crucial to the survival of the human species. They maintain the ecological balance, devour the pests that threaten our agriculture and help to aerate the soil. It is perhaps a shrewd move, then, to make the antagonist of this monster movie an alien species of arachnid, that arrives like a shooting star into a Brooklyn tenement block. It is here that the 12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne), already a fan of spiders and a talented artist, adopts the little creature to feed her curiosity and research. And, dishing up bugs for it to eat, she is astonished to see her pet –which she has christened ‘Sting’ – grow twice its size in just two hours…
Being somewhat ungainly creatures in motion, spiders have made for poor cinematic bedfellows, with the best arachnid movie remaining the original Charlotte’s Web (1973). Kiah Roache-Turner’s sub-Alien rip-off is not going to do any favours for the arthropod, or for the Australian horror film. As the most venomous spiders reside in Australia, the perfect location for a spider-based horror film would surely be that country. It’s a shame, then, that this production from Down Under has opted to set its scene in Brooklyn, in the midst of a brutal snow storm, for some reason. Surely, enough films have already been set in the New York borough, and New York has been the scene of more alien landings than the moon. In the recent past, Australia has punched above its weight in the horror genre, with such modern classics as Wolf Creek, The Babadook, Relic and Talk to Me. So why disguise this crock as something it isn’t?
Unfortunately, Roache-Turner’s Sting has little to commend it, from its misleading title (no, it’s not another musical biopic), to the animatronic puppetry, to the ludicrous sound design (even a flashlight comes with its own sound effect). If it weren’t so hackneyed, far-fetched and, frankly, ludicrous, Sting might have provided a modicum of black comedy. There is an attempt at humour with the introduction of two batty siblings, played by the Australian veterans Robyn Nevin (Relic) and Noni Hazelhurst, but without a note of credibility they are merely grotesques. Roache-Turner succeeds better with Alyla Browne as the headstrong and resourceful Charlotte who, with this and the title role in Furiosa, is shaping up to be quite a screen presence. The camera loves her and she deserves a better showcase.
JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Cast: Ryan Corr, Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell, Robyn Nevin, Noni Hazelhurst, Silvia Colloca, Danny Kim, Jermaine Fowler.
Dir Kiah Roache-Turner, Pro Jamie Hilton, Michael Pontin and Chris Brown, Screenplay Kiah Roache-Turner, Ph Brad Shield, Pro Des Fiona Donovan, Ed Luke Doolan and Kiah Roache-Turner, Music Anna Drubich, Costumes Georgia Woods, Sound Lachlan Harris, Dialect coach Danielle Roffe.
Screen Australia/Align/Screen NSW/Cumulus VFX/Spectrum Entertainment/See Pictures/Pictures in Paradise-StudioCanal.
91 mins. Australia/USA. 2023. US Rel: 12 April 2024. UK Rel: 31 May 2024. Cert. 15.
