SummaryAfter raising an unnervingly talented spider in secret, 12-year-old Charlotte must face the facts about her pet—and fight for her family’s survival—when the once-charming creature rapidly transforms into a giant, flesh-eating monster.
SummaryAfter raising an unnervingly talented spider in secret, 12-year-old Charlotte must face the facts about her pet—and fight for her family’s survival—when the once-charming creature rapidly transforms into a giant, flesh-eating monster.
It’s pure horror movie fun. Yet the relationships consistently raise the stakes and elevate the film from the “creature feature” label to the kind of thriller that becomes a fan favorite.
Though its characters and story could've benefited from a deeper, more original development, Roache-Turner ultimately knows what audiences are coming to see and delivers that in droves, offering horrific deaths, a tense atmosphere and stylish direction to entertaining effect.
“Sting” isn’t great fun or great really in any sense. But it’s not bad for a giant spider killer thriller B-movie set in snowy New York and shot in Australia.
There’s decent fun to be had in this crafty and contained Aussie skin-crawler (a low-budget affair that doesn’t scrimp when it comes to its WETA-created monster), but Sting is a bit too small for its massive alien spider to maneuver itself in unexpected ways, and the tender human story that Roache-Turner weaves around her lacks the bite it needs to melt your heart or liquify any of your other organs.