We don’t see a lot of new creature-features in theaters anymore; nowadays they tend to go straight to streaming/VOD, the modern equivalent of yesteryear’s DTV destination. Somehow, though, Kiah Roache-Turner‘s Sting escaped the same fate as its faunal peers. That’s not to say there aren’t things to like about this offering of spider horror, but what little there is to enjoy is trapped inside the webbing of a tedious family drama.
The origins of Sting‘s oversized bug is, of course, not of this planet, as clearly seen in the movie’s opening. From there the story takes on an unbearably gritty tone regarding the eight-legged freak’s potential victims. That initial fantastical element of Roache-Turner’s script is decisively exterminated once we meet the miserable human characters. You’re forced back down to Earth as you get to know Alyla Browne‘s Charlotte, a pissy 12-year-old who has since adopted the spider in secret and named it “Sting,” and her wretched parents. It’ll be a while before the namesake can have the spotlight, and those minutes feel like hours.
What looks to be a comedy soon turns into a monster melodrama. Poking fun at Charlotte’s grandmother’s (Noni Hazlehurst) dementia is about all this film has in the way of comic relief, and it’s never all that funny. Just sad. Charlotte’s mother (Penelope Mitchell) and stepfather (Ryan Corr) are always bickering about one drab issue or another, never quite coming across as more than walking stress indicators in the story. And Charlotte’s pangs are plausible, yet the unrelenting nature of her sulking doesn’t exactly endear her to growingly impatient audiences. We are itching for Sting’s seismic awakening.
Sting often acts like a 1990s/2000s movie in the sense that it uses the same racial clichés readily found during those decades’ genre fare. On top of Grandma’s dementia being used as a repeated punchline, Jermaine Fowler is here only for slapstick purposes; he’s the ill-fated Black exterminator who is better at buffoonery than his actual job. Silvia Colloca plays the Latino neighbor whose possible depth — her personal loss is briefly brought up in conversation — is overshadowed by cartoonish stereotypes, and Danny Kim‘s loner nerd character is deemed a “weirdo” several times over. So, Roache-Turner either doesn’t get out much, or mentally he’s stuck in the past.
As for Charlotte’s parents, they challenged my own enjoyment whenever they shared screen-time. Had the movie focused on Ethan’s (Corr) bonding issues with his stepdaughter, which are indeed affecting, rather than his marital discord and self-doubting sense of fatherhood, maybe the family angle of Sting would have been more tolerable. Trying to absorb all the issues within this fractured household is more daunting than the humongous spider lurking in the background.
At the very least, Sting boasts solid special effects. A great mix of practical and digital is, essentially, all that redeems this lopsided horror movie, but when the fearsome spider is showcased, you’ll be impressed. This is due to the fact that Wētā Workshop, whose claim to fame are the Lord of the Rings movies, handled the creature effects. While Sting’s arachnid antics don’t begin to erase the taxing family squabbling and antiquated character generalizations, they do make for a great chaser.
Sting screens in theaters starting on April 12.
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