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Is it nearly Christmas? It must be nearly Christmas, because an Outposter has bestowed the greatest gift an Outposter can upon us – a contribution! Mhatt reviews recent creep-crawly horror Sting.
We really do love it when Outposters send articles in. If you have something you want to say to your fellow Outposters, then send it to us via contactus@lastmovieoutpost.com.
Here is Mhatt.
Sting
Stars: Alyla Browne, Ryan Corr, Jermaine Fowler, Penelope Mitchell, Noni Hazlehurst, Robyn Nevin, Danny Kim and Silvia Colloca.
Directed by: Kiah Roache-Turner
Written by: Kiah Roache-Turner
Hello my meager two-legged amigos, I am here to share with you my spoiler-free review of 2024’s Sting.
A snow-covered city is ground zero for a meteor carrying a baby alien spider. It hatches, gets caught, and is nurtured by human girl Charlotte (Browne) who slowly realizes it is not just a friendly neighborhood spider.
Pets go missing, the spider learns how to whistle, neighbors with varying motivations are introduced and dispatched, and in the end, we all have the lesson reinforced – don’t keep strange animals as pets!
Cast:
Though humans abound, the story revolves around the relationship between Alyla and her Step-Father Ethan (Corr) who is a man pulled by many strings. As well as being a father, husband, a handy man for the building his cheap and crusty mother-in-law Gunter (Nevin) owns, Ethan is also a burgeoning comic book artist.
His wife Heather (Mitchell) and his newborn son Liam keep the plot moving when necessary but don’t really add much to the stakes besides potentially becoming spider food.
So, with movies that rely on children as the protagonist there is a very crucial likeability factor required to make the proceedings tolerable and Alyla Browne carries the movie pretty successfully as Charlotte. She’s believably brave, tolerably precocious in a Kevin McAllister way, not an easy feat but one that has made her a face to watch.
I mean Anna Taylor Joy is due to age out any minute now right? Not only did she play the younger version of Joy, playing the younger version of Charlize Theron, in this years underwhelming Furiosa, but Browne has also carved out a bit of a niche playing child versions of famous actresses.
In the 2021 mini-series “Nine Perfect Strangers” she played Nicole Kidman’s daughter, the younger version of Tilda Swinton in Three Thousand Years of Longing (2022), also the younger version of Teaghan Croft in the sailing bio-drama, True Spirit (2023) and the younger version of Alice in the 2023 series The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart opposite Sigourney Weaver.
Browne’s next project is the weirdly star-studded Sonic the Hedgehog 3, slated for a December 20th release.
I wasn’t familiar with director Kiah Roach-Turners before (Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2013), Nektronic (2018), Wyrmwood: Apocalypse (2021)) but his work here is up to snuff, he seems to enjoy the genre and comfortably connects with the material. The rest of the cast are pretty solid but due to mainly working in Australian productions I am not familiar with most of their work.
You may recognize a few faces though; Robyn Nevin was in the solidly fun Gods of Egypt (2016) and played a council person in Matrix Reloaded/Revolutions (2003), Ryan Corr was in four episodes of the first season of House of the Dragon as well as Mel Gibson’s 2016 War epic Hacksaw Ridge. Penelope Mitchell was in Star Trek: Picard and Hellboy (not the most recent reboot, the one from 2019 that completely wasted David Harbour), and the guy who played the exterminator.
Jermaine Fowler was in the surprisingly not-bad Ricky Stanicky from earlier this year.
Setting:
Being stuck in a gloomy apartment building during a sustained snowstorm created a nice and claustrophobic feel, as do the cluttered apartments of the hapless neighbors who would be victims of the extraterrestrial creepy crawly.
A very well-done introductory sequence introduces us to everything and everyone we need to know and was probably my favourite part of the movie, providing smooth exposition and foreshadowing the eventual climax via some creepy imagery which you will get once you see it.
The spider is a pretty cooperative villain, motivated by hunger, absent of any real malice or intent, it just needs to eat a lot and has an erratic growth cycle. One minor bone of contention is the reliance on the ridiculously large air duct trope but I can give it a bit of leeway as it is executed with some respect to the audience and the story. It used consistently and serves the plot well and helps to expediate character development but I do feel this is an element that could have used a rethink think.
While I have your ear why not share some unsolicited Saturday morning script advice; remember at the end of Rosemary’s Baby when it turns out the apartments are all connected? Sting established that a skeleton key exists which would allow the same access to her neighbours et cetera.
Charlotte is an adventurous kid so why not have her use that as a way to explore the building via old and forgotten crawlspaces and leave the dusty ass vents to the spiders? Perhaps they were desperate to maintain the 14A rating and decided not to draw comparisons to that movie about “that” pregnant lady made by “that” guy.
F/X:
Okay so some good stuff, any suspension of belief required by the vent gimmick isn’t needed for the creature effects which are very well done.
Refreshingly, the spider – modeled after the highly venomous Australian Red Back – was realized using mostly practical effects and as an important reminder how F/X you can still see some of the artists loving fingerprints on are generally more fun then even the best CGI.
Overall:
Sting is a pretty standard feature with a straightforward plot delivered by a solid visual eye and very respectable creature effects.
We get nods, or homages to Alien, Predator, Terminator and Arachnophobia. It won’t change the genre but does deserve some shelf space amongst its counterparts. While there are some effectively chilling moments none are ever scarier than anything we see in Gremlins, a film to which Sting owes much of it’s aesthetic.
Sting does get a bit bogged down by some family drama side quest toward the end which either degrades or upgrades it to a family film instead of straight-up horror.
Regardless, Joe Dante would be proud.
Sting is now available to stream on Amazon Prime.
The post An Outposter Reviews STING (2024) appeared first on Last Movie Outpost.
