Bug-a BOO! Fun, frights and feelings figure into a Charlotte’s web of terror in ‘Sting’
“Sting” — 3 stars
Despite its confusing title (no, this is not about the lead singer of The Police) and disappointingly trite ending, Kiah Roache-Turner’s low-budget Australian creature feature merges fun and thrills with a ton of kills in a breezy, cheesy salute to classic 1950s “it came from outer space” tales.
Writer/director Roache-Turner capitalizes on his particular set of skills — creating tightly packaged commercials and music videos — to push his compact, 91-minute “Sting” along with break-your-neck alacrity.
This veteran of two zombie thrillers and “Nekrotronic” (a man hunts demons on the internet) assembles a crackerjack cast perfectly in sync with this movie’s blackly comic tone, all inspired by a scary “big, black spider” that reportedly bit him as a toddler.
Feisty and rebellious 12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne) lives in New York City with her mom Heather (Penelope Mitchell) and step-dad Ethan (Ryan Corr). The artistically inclined Ethan creates a comic book titled “Fang Girl” so they can connect by working on it together.
But Mom and Dad’s new baby (an Oscar-caliber tag-team performance by Jett and Kade Berry) commands most of their attention, leaving Charlotte feeling isolated and lonely.
Until one night she discovers a small spider and decides to adopt it as a pet, not realizing that it has just emerged from a glowing meteorite near their large apartment building.
Could this spider, which she names Sting, come from a planet of superior arachnids that have mastered space travel? So why does this one behave like H.R. Geiger’s “Alien”? Could smart space spiders be sending their serial killers to Earth?
Whatever, Roache-Turner seems less interested in sci-fi mechanics than in the forces shaping and propelling his characters, all steeped in his own life experiences.
Educated Ethan struggles to make ends meet as a low-paid building superintendent. Wracked with self-doubt, overwhelmed by family pressures, he is not Bruce “Die Hard” Willis scampering through the air ducts of a high-rise building, creatively finding weapons to use against a threat to family members.
But Charlotte is.
Sting graduates from ingesting insects to hunting birds and tiny mammals. As it grows, it attacks humans, wrapping up some in webbing to be eaten at a later time. (Yes, these scenes reference those deleted from Ridley Scott’s original “Alien.”)
A wisecracking pest control exterminator named Frank (a star-making turn by Jermaine Fowler, who performs his own many stunts) supplies nervous comic relief, dressed like a Ghostbuster with attitude.
Two tough older sisters, Helga and Gunter (played by noted Australian actors Noni Hazlehurst and Robyn Nevin), hang around the apartment building, emanating judgmental haughtiness.
Erik (Danny Kim), a biologist and researcher, conveniently lives a floor up from Charlotte, and he instantly realizes that the creature inside her tiny jar acts like no spider he knows.
As the mom, Mitchell’s Heather makes the least impression here, and that makes sense considering Roache-Turner treats “Sting” principally as a dad-daughter drama (with a killer spider subplot) rather than a monster versus a family film.
What “Sting” desperately needs is what the movie “Chinatown” had: a strong director who replaced the screenwriter’s pandering, appeasing ending with an unsettling, more realistic finale, one which would confirm the hard-earned dad-daughter bond here.
Nope.
“Sting” goes the way of “Godzilla Minus One,” capping a riveting, edgy monster movie with underwhelming conventionality.
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Starring: Alyla Browne, Ryan Corr, Penelope Miller, Jermaine Fowler
Directed by: Kiah Roache-Turner
Other: A Well Go USA Entertainment theatrical release. Rated R for gore, language violence. 91 minutes