Sting: A Creature Feature That Comes Up Short (Blu-ray)
The Film:
Creature features have long been a staple of the horror genre, dating all the way back to the silent era. Whether it's vampires, werewolves, zombies, or any deadly monster, these kinds of films have had the power to send chills down the spines of viewers with their terrifying thrills. For his feature "Sting," writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner has selected a large alien spider as his vehicle to attempt to deliver said thrills, but will such an ordinary creature be able to make good on this sub-genre's requirements in order to deliver a chilling experience for the audience?
Charlotte (Alyla Browne) is a rebellious 12-year-old who lives in an old apartment building with her mother Heather (Penelope Mitchell), half-brother Liam, and step-father Ethan (Ryan Corr), who is also the building supervisor. Ethan is always busy fixing things around the building, while also trying to find time to draw pages of a comic book, and with Heather typically being busy with work and taking care of Liam, this leaves Charlotte alone much of the time. One day, she comes across a small spider (that we had witnessed crashing into the building), decides to keep it as a pet, and names it Sting. At first it seems quite harmless, that is until it starts to grow quite quickly, leading to a very dangerous & deadly situation that puts the entire building at risk.
For a creature feature like "Sting" to be successful, there are a small list of elements that it's going to need to nail down in order for it to have the impact that it wants to have. First and foremost, it needs to have an interesting monster/antagonist that will give the audience those chills mentioned earlier, and one that will actually add something to the story instead of just being a basic, stand-in creature that's only there to be defeated in the end. To that end, perhaps a large spider was not the greatest choice for Roache-Turner to go with, as it is a rather ordinary, common creature, just bigger because it's an alien.
However, even if the monster itself is not the most interesting, original creation, there's always the chance that the human characters will be enough to offset the bland villain. In this case, Roache-Turner does a decent job drumming up the family dynamic, and in particular the relationship between Charlotte and her step-father Ethan. Again, very much like the film's creature, it's hardly anything original, but it does at least try to play it up for a little bit of character development and emotional resonance.
Finally, there's the actual narrative itself, which is sadly where "Sting" ends up coming up pretty short. While the family element does help it out a little, the main narrative mainly ends up focusing on the spider causing havoc in this old apartment building, which conveniently has enormous ducts throughout for more of the action to take place. It's a set-up that's pretty much as basic as it could get, resulting in a film that feels like it wants to be something more, but which ultimately gets held back quite a bit by its rather simple premise, one that doesn't have many directions it can go.
Some horror fans may find the basic premise to be enough for a silly good time, but most will more than likely find it getting tiresome pretty quickly as it heads down a fairly obvious path, all before ending with a closing shot that most will see coming from miles away. "Sting" certainly gets a few points for at least trying to give us some characters to care about, but like many other horror films out there, what it truly needed was a good old fashioned dose of originality to bring it to life.
Video/Audio:
"Sting" comes to Blu-ray in a 1.85:1, 1080p High Definition transfer of excellent quality. This is yet another horror feature that gets incredibly dark, particularly in its latter half, but the picture always remains perfectly sharp. Likewise, the 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio track is fantastic, giving you all of the dialogue and music in outstanding quality. Overall, the film has received marvelous treatment for its debut home release.
Special Features:
Behind the Scenes (19 Minutes): A series of three featurettes that delve into the creature's creation, the director, and the cast.
Conclusion:
"Sting" gets points for trying to give us a semi-interesting family dynamic within its creature feature framework, but sadly its rather bland monster & basic premise turn this into a mostly tiresome, forgettable horror outing that needed a little more substance & originality to get the audience engaged.
Score: 2.5/5
Available on Blu-ray starting tomorrow.
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