I hate spiders, which is something I actually attribute to the movie Arachnophobia. Indeed that's a movie I find a rollercoaster in that it's clearly very good, and funny, but still sends a chill up my spine. As such it's set up a strange relationship with killer spider movies, I feel compelled to seek them out because that visceral thrill is something I deep down want more of. As it stands most killer spider movies are terrible, but I go on in hope.
I'd never heard of Sting, a 2024 Aussie movie that positions itself as being in New York. This type of thing usually annoys me, as it's unnecessary, but in this case h think it's to facilitate the snowstorm outside so I can let it slide.
We find ourselves looking through the eyes of Ethan (Ryan Corr) an aspiring comic book artist currently working as handyman in a dilapidated apartment complex run by his slumlord mother in law Helga (Noni Hazlehurst) he's recently married her daughter Heather (Penelope Mitchell) and taken over stepdad duties of her preteen daughter Charlotte (Alyla Brown) in addition to their newborn son Liam.
Things take a turn for the strange when a tiny meteor crashes into the building. It hatches a spider, which is quickly found and adopted by Charlotte. She keeps him in a jar and feeds him the many cockroaches that inhabit the building. As the spider starts to grow at a rapid rate, it also displays certain unique qualities like being able to whistle, and it isn't long before it works out how to escape from the jar when it needs too, and it wants more than roaches!
As a movie I went into with no real expectations, and the ones I did have veering towards the worst, I was actually moderately taken in by this. There's not a lot of originality, but what it does is provide a fairly solid little creature feature.
It's not perfect, Charlotte is the quintessential annoying adolescent character. It's not Brown's fault, she's written as an idiot. It's a trope as old as cinema to make characters of this age group as selfishly stupid as possible, and this is no exception. The fact her role is so prominent exacerbates things. They try to get her off the hook with the introduction of a third party who takes the spider under pretends of taking it to the department of health but actually selfishly feeds it more to make it stronger (a nice twist actually) but ultimately, yeah this is her fault.
Truth be told the characters are generally silly cliches, with the dad the only remotely affable one. There's not a lot of sympathy here.
What there is, is some decent atmosphere, a few laughs (I'll admit the false scares when people think they see the spider were quite good) some 'inspired by Aliens' scenes that are actually well done and some very cool effects that refreshingly appear to be mainly practical.
It takes its time to get going, and in all honesty I'm not sure why they felt the need to put the Sci Fi aspect in, it probably would have worked better without it, I suppose they see it as an easy out of explaining the unnatural nature of the spider and its abilities but in all honesty I could suspend belief.
With this said, I'd call this a pleasant surprise. It's not amazing, and I'm unlikely to ever watch it again, but it's a fairly creepy and atmospheric way to pass a Sunday afternoon.
I'd never heard of Sting, a 2024 Aussie movie that positions itself as being in New York. This type of thing usually annoys me, as it's unnecessary, but in this case h think it's to facilitate the snowstorm outside so I can let it slide.
We find ourselves looking through the eyes of Ethan (Ryan Corr) an aspiring comic book artist currently working as handyman in a dilapidated apartment complex run by his slumlord mother in law Helga (Noni Hazlehurst) he's recently married her daughter Heather (Penelope Mitchell) and taken over stepdad duties of her preteen daughter Charlotte (Alyla Brown) in addition to their newborn son Liam.
Things take a turn for the strange when a tiny meteor crashes into the building. It hatches a spider, which is quickly found and adopted by Charlotte. She keeps him in a jar and feeds him the many cockroaches that inhabit the building. As the spider starts to grow at a rapid rate, it also displays certain unique qualities like being able to whistle, and it isn't long before it works out how to escape from the jar when it needs too, and it wants more than roaches!
As a movie I went into with no real expectations, and the ones I did have veering towards the worst, I was actually moderately taken in by this. There's not a lot of originality, but what it does is provide a fairly solid little creature feature.
It's not perfect, Charlotte is the quintessential annoying adolescent character. It's not Brown's fault, she's written as an idiot. It's a trope as old as cinema to make characters of this age group as selfishly stupid as possible, and this is no exception. The fact her role is so prominent exacerbates things. They try to get her off the hook with the introduction of a third party who takes the spider under pretends of taking it to the department of health but actually selfishly feeds it more to make it stronger (a nice twist actually) but ultimately, yeah this is her fault.
Truth be told the characters are generally silly cliches, with the dad the only remotely affable one. There's not a lot of sympathy here.
What there is, is some decent atmosphere, a few laughs (I'll admit the false scares when people think they see the spider were quite good) some 'inspired by Aliens' scenes that are actually well done and some very cool effects that refreshingly appear to be mainly practical.
It takes its time to get going, and in all honesty I'm not sure why they felt the need to put the Sci Fi aspect in, it probably would have worked better without it, I suppose they see it as an easy out of explaining the unnatural nature of the spider and its abilities but in all honesty I could suspend belief.
With this said, I'd call this a pleasant surprise. It's not amazing, and I'm unlikely to ever watch it again, but it's a fairly creepy and atmospheric way to pass a Sunday afternoon.
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