Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Kiah Roache-Turner
Starring: Alyla Browne, Ryan Corr, Penelope Mitchell, Robyn Nevin, Noni Hazlehurst, Jermaine
Fowler
Kiah Roache-Turner, the writer/director of the cult Australian
post-apocalyptic Wyrmwood franchise tells a more intimate
story but with notably more resources with creature feature
Sting. Working with New Zealand's famed WETA workshop, Roache-Turner's
latest has all the slickness of a Hollywood Blumhouse production, but
with a bit more depth to its characters and more thought given to its
scares.
Though shot on sets in Australia, Sting plays out in one
of those famous Brooklyn brownstone buildings. When a small egg falls
out of the heavens and lands through a window in said building, a tiny
spider hatches (insert David Bowie pun). The creature is found by
Charlotte (Alyla Browne), a rebellious 12-year-old who likes to
sneak into her neighbours' apartments through the air vents. The
building is owned by Charlotte's German grandmother Gunter (Robyn Nevin), a stern woman who lives with her senile sister Helga (Noni Hazlehurst). Charlotte lives with her mother Heather (Penelope Mitchell),
her stepdad Ethan (Ryan Corr) and her infant brother Liam.
Charlotte's home life is somewhat fraught thanks to Ethan's struggles
to progress in his career as a comic book artist. Forced to work as
Gunter's janitor to pay the rent, Ethan is left little time to work on
his comics. This has put a strain on his relationship with Heather, who
fears he's set to walk away like her previous husband, whom Charlotte
still naively adores.
Roache-Turner takes a lot of time to explore this family dynamic. He
clearly wants the audience to be invested in his characters so we care
what happens to them when the inevitable monster munch begins. There's a
fine balance to be struck in movies like this however, and in this case
we're arguably given a little more family drama than is necessary.
There's a stretch in the middle of the film where you almost forget
you're watching a movie about a space spider, so preoccupied
Sting becomes with the relationship between Charlotte and
her stepdad, and it's past the hour mark of this 90 minute movie before
the arachnid action really kicks in.
Kudos though to Roache-Turner for giving us two protagonists in
Charlotte and Ethan who aren't easy for the audience to warm to.
Charlotte behaves like a spoiled brat who is constantly unfavourably
comparing her new dad to the one who walked out on her. Ethan suffers
from a sense of self-entitlement that at one point is unleashed in a fit
of rage that sees him put his fist through a TV screen. Australian
horror movies tend to be willing to go to dark places their Hollywood
cousins shy away from, and that's the case once again here. It's credit
to the talents of Browne and Corr that we end up rooting for Charlotte
and Ethan once their family is placed in danger, as they make their
troubles feel humanly relatable, and their late bonding amid danger is
genuinely heartfelt.
It's just a shame that so little time is devoted to the monster, which
Charlotte names "Sting," and which grows considerably each time it
feeds. Beginning with various pets, the spider's appetite leads it onto
human prey as it grows to the size of a small horse. Roache-Turner finds
clever ways to mine our fear of creepy crawlies. In its initial
miniature form, we wince as the spider crawls perilously close to
unsuspecting human hands. When it later becomes an absolute unit
Roache-Turner films his monster as though it's a xenomorph from the
Alien
franchise. There are a couple of moments that can only be viewed as
blatant homages (or rip-offs if you're feeling less kind) to Ridley
Scott and James Cameron's first two entries in that series.
For horror fans the big complaint about Sting will likely
be the lack of gory set-pieces. There's really only one onscreen death,
but it's a satisfying old school use of rubbery effects work. For the
most part we only see the results of Sting's rampage through the
building. If you're expecting an apartment based gorefest along the
lines of Demons 2 or the recent
Evil Dead Rise, you may find Sting's lack of bloodletting frustrating. But compared to the average modern
creature feature, Sting is a welcome return to the
reverence shown for such films in the Amblin era. There's none of the
bad CG and ironic snark you find in most of today's monster movies, and
it's clear Roache-Turner is a fan of this sort of stuff. Following
Talk To Me
and
Late Night with the Devil, it seems Australian horror is having a renaissance, delivering the
sort of fun thrills Hollywood horror seems to have largely forsaken in
recent years.
Sting is in US cinemas from
April 12th and UK/ROI cinemas from May 31st.
