Sting – Studio Canal

Director: Kiah Roache-Turner
Screenplay: Kiah Roache-Turner
Starring: Ryan Corr, Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell and Jermaine Fowler
Country: Australia, United States
Running Time: 92 min
Year: 2024

When it comes to creature features, the one type I tend to avoid are spider films. The primary reason is due to my slight arachnophobia. Some films have spiders that don’t phase me, but others can downright terrify me. I’ll never forget watching the second Harry Potter film when I was young, or the third Lord of the Rings and being absolutely terrified by the sequences involving giant spiders. Nope, not for me. However, when I saw the trailer for Kiah Roache-Turner’s Sting, I was beyond intrigued. After seeing the film at the cinema, I absolutely loved it and patiently waited until the Blu-ray was available to review and jumped at the chance to cover it for the site. How did it hold up on a rewatch, you might be wondering? Well.. 

Sting follows Charlotte (Charlotte’s Web, anyone?), a twelve year old girl who’s also an aspiring artist like her step-dad Ethan. She’s in that phase of her life where she’s rebelling, and after an asteroid lands in her great-aunt’s house and a little spider pops out, Charlotte decides to keep the little spider and call it Sting (after the sword in The Hobbit.) Refusing to let anybody know about Sting, she feeds him little bugs and before long, Sting is growing bigger and bigger, with an appetite for everybody in Charlotte’s apartment complex. 

I absolutely adored Sting on both viewings, and it’s primarily down to how well-crafted the film is. It walks this line between a campy horror-comedy and an Amblin-esque family drama, with Ethan’s role as the step-dad feeling like your typical Spielbergian dad who’s trying his best to keep everything afloat. Even outside of the family drama, Amblin feels like a big influence for Sting, with the whole “keeping an alien as a pet” feeling very E.T. The Extra Terrestrial and looking at the reviews and general consensus for the film, that seems to have divided audiences.

Thankfully, I’m on the side that really enjoys both halves of the film, with the performances from Ryan Corr and Alyla Browne, the latter of which recently starred in George Miller’s phenomenal Furiosa as young Furiosa, offering a compelling set of characters to root for. Speaking of characters to root for, I absolutely love the exterminator Frank, played by Jermaine Fowler, he’s the film’s primary source of comedic relief and he’s hilarious in every scene he’s in. Overall, it’s a great cast of characters and while it might not have been super necessary to have in-depth and complex characters in a film about a killer spider, I appreciate that it’s well-done and genuinely worked for me. 

I won’t give away too much involving the kills in the film, as for horror hounds, ruining the kills would take away from the fun but Sting gets gnarly, which is greatly appreciated and one scene in particular with the drunk neighbour had me wanting to cover my eyes, even though I knew what was coming. There’s some great, effective horror set-pieces which I loved. 

And finally, let’s talk about Sting herself, the spider of the hour. Created by Weta Workshop, mostly known for their work on The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films, the practical Sting looks fantastic. While CGI is used for some of the earlier sequences, it never felt distracting and I admired how much the film pushes for practical effects when possible. We hear stories about how filmmakers want to use practical but end up going for the faster, cheaper option and it’s nice to see that a smaller production like this could deliver on some killer effects.

Sting won’t be for everyone, especially if you’re terrified of spiders, but I absolutely loved it. It’s still one of my favourite films of the year so far, on the same level as The First Omen, Immaculate and Lisa Frankenstein. If this sounds interesting to you, please check it out! I can 100% see this finding a cult audience on home video in the next few years and it deserves one. It’s a great time and blends comedy, horror and family drama better than it has any right to. Go see it! 

Film:

Sting releases on Blu-ray and DVD on the 19th of August via Studio Canal. I viewed the Blu-ray and thought it looked decent. It seemed to struggle a little with the darker scenes, resulting in a slightly muddy image but I’m not sure if that was down to the source or not. When I saw the film at the cinema, I didn’t notice compression issues like that but it’s still a decent looker, primarily in the lighter sequences. There’s three audio tracks, all of them English. The default track is an LPCM 2.0 track, and there’s also a 5.1 DTS MA track which I flipped through, and a LPCM 2.0 audio descriptive track. The 5.1 is the best of the bunch, and optional English subtitles are included too. A decent A/V experience from the disc.

Unfortunately, there’s no bonus features at all on the disc, not even a trailer. There’s a limited edition slipcover available for the Blu-ray at HMV, but that’s about it for special editions, which is a shame given how interesting the film is. I would have loved to see a making-of documentary, a director’s commentary or even a featurette or two but alas. 

Sting is a killer time with a lacklustre Blu-ray release, void of any bonus features and an acceptable transfer. The audio’s great and if you’re a fan of the film or fun creature features, it’s worth picking up but I was slightly disappointed by how barebones the release is. Worth owning for the fans.

Disc/Packaging:

Where to watch Sting