Sting (2024)

September 3, 2024 10:12 AM

[TRAILER] After raising an unnervingly talented spider in secret, 12-year-old Charlotte must face the truth about her pet and fight for her family's survival.

Starring Ryan Corr. Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell, Robyn Nevin, Noni Hazelhurst, Silvia Colloca, Danny Kim. Jermaine Fowler.

Written and directed by Kiah Roache-Turner. Produced by Jamie Hilton, Michael Pontin, Chris Brown. Cinematography by Brad Shield. Edited by Luke Doolan, Kiah Roache-Turner. Music by Anna Drubich.

70% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes.

Currently available for digital rental in the US. JustWatch listing.

posted by DirtyOldTown (5 comments total)

This is fun! It's a callback to the kind of mass Hollywood horror comedies that Joe Dante made: driven by comedy rhythms, loaded with laughs, precise in its jokes like a WB cartoon, ceaselessly energetic and fluid, but still bringing in some scares.

Roache-Turner has very commercial sensibilities--a bit of Spielbergian meeting kids at their own level, a bit Barry Sonnenfeld-like in how he handles macabre reveals like punchlines--but updated a bit. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that this director based a lot of the zany, interconnected by ducts and sounds carrying vibe of this apartment building was inspired by Delicatessen. It's pop filmmaking, but updated since the Boomers who started that wave.

It's not a deep movie, and it really does tilt pop in its execution. (Roache-Turner's next gig is going to be a Marvel movie or a sci-fi/comedy franchise reboot, I would wager.) You can tell this director came up via commercials. But slick isn't a bad thing if you're actually good at playing for the popcorn crowd, and this movie has that.

If you're afraid of spiders though, stay the fuck away.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:19 AM on September 3 [1 favorite]

So is this like the Arachnophobia of the 21st Century?
posted by Atreides at 10:41 AM on September 3

I haven't seen Arachnophobia since it came out. I will say I remember that as being more of a spider infestation movie, and that would be more like this year's Infested. This is a single, rapidly growing spider, getting more and more fearsome as it goes.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 10:55 AM on September 3 [2 favorites]

Main character's name is Charlotte? Nice!
posted by JohnFromGR at 10:08 AM on September 4 [3 favorites]

It was an infestation with one big bad spider. It was also a bit of a comedy, too, along with the, you know, spider horror. I may need to check this out!
posted by Atreides at 8:39 AM on September 5 [1 favorite]