Review: Sting

SYNOPSIS
One cold, stormy night in New York City, a mysterious object falls from the sky and smashes through the window of a rundown apartment building. It is an egg, and from this egg emerges a strange little spider… The creature is discovered by Charlotte, a rebellious 12-year-old girl obsessed with comic books. Despite her stepfather Ethan’s best efforts to connect with her through their comic book co-creation Fang Girl, Charlotte feels isolated. Her mother and Ethan are distracted by their new baby and are struggling to cope, leaving Charlotte to bond with the spider. Keeping it as a secret pet, she names it Sting. As Charlotte’s fascination with Sting increases, so does its size. Growing at a monstrous rate, Sting’s appetite for blood becomes insatiable. Neighbors’ pets start to go missing, and then the neighbors themselves. Soon Charlotte’s family and the eccentric characters of the building realize that they are all trapped, hunted by a ravenous supersized arachnid with a taste for human flesh… and Charlotte is the only one who knows how to stop it.

What We Thought:

If I had gotten Sting on Blu-ray to review or happened to scroll through a streaming site and caught it randomly I might have had a different reaction to it. I might have liked it a bit more because I would have had zero expectations going into it. Unfortunately I saw it on the big screen because it’s opening in theaters which I really don’t get. This is a streaming or home video film at best.

I understand horror films can be surprise box office hits and studios/production companies trying to find an “in” to theaters and box office money can rely on horror flicks to get their foot in the door. It’s from a company I’ve been a fan of for over a decade that’s trying to get into the theatrical game and I’m thinking they were hoping Sting would open that door for them. I like their home video products, I wish I liked Sting more because of that.

As for the film itself, the biggest issue is that it has huge tonal shifts. One minute we are laughing at an old lady, the next there’s family drama between a young girl, her mother and step-dad. Then comes some (stereotypical) comedic relief from an exterminator which leads to shots down a hall or into an air vent. Then a baby cries. Then the spider kills something. The movie doesn’t know if it wants to be a horror comedy or a creature feature and it suffers because of it.

And it’s a shame because if they went with 100% creature feature and amped up the gore it would have really worked. The young actress playing Charlotte, the main character, is great. She easily carries the film especially the third act when she must step up and fight the spider. Usually kids tend to be the villain in horror, but she’s the hero and does a great job. If it stuck to her befriending an alien spider then having to fight it after it goes on a killing spree and attacking her family, it would be a slam dunk horror flick. Instead it takes too long to get into and there isn’t enough gore and violence to make up for the drag. If you are a B-Movie (and there’s nothing wrong with being a B-Movie), don’t just tell us there’s a killer alien spider, SHOW US. Give us blood and decapitations and take full advantage of your R-rating.

After the screening I said Sting is a great streaming flick you put on at 2 a.m. possibly while high. It’s not a theatrical film. There is so much in it that you could ignore or most likely miss while watching it at home and playing on your phone. It’s set in New York, but clearly isn’t New York. It’s set in a winter snowstorm, but the snow really doesn’t matter. There’s a second extermination team that is mentioned, but seems to be deleted from the resulting film because it serves no purpose whatsoever. None of that would matter if it doubled down on being a killer spider movie and leaned into its R-rating. There will be people who like Sting way more than me and when it eventually hits home video/streaming it will gain a huge cult following, but I can’t see it catching on theatrically.