By Ryan Dailey
Sting, as a popcorn movie serves its purpose just fine, granted, Arachnophobia and Eight Legged Freaks arguably did it better. Sting focuses on the story of Ethan (Ryan Corr) who is the superintendent for an apartment as well as being a comic book artist whose career is on an upswing. Ethan uses his partner’s daughter, Charlotte, for inspiration for his books, despite the ever growing rift forming between them. The titular spider, named Sting, crash lands on Earth in a tiny meteor, Charlotte then befriends the arachnid, only to have it escape and grow larger and more menacing in a true horror movie trope fashion.Sting lacks the personality of the aforementioned examples given, there is no doubt about that. Even Frank, (Jermaine Fowler) who plays the obligatory, wise-cracking exterminator can not save this film from being mediocre. Not that mediocre can be a bad thing, as Sting is a brain-less romp, a film perfect for turning off one’s mind and just watching a giant spider terrorize people for 90 minutes.
Sting is not going to leave audiences clamoring for a franchise, as it is as mundane as Kiah Roache-Turner’s other cinematic offerings, such as Wrymwood: Road of the Dead. It is the Kevin Smith conundrum of filmmaking. Just because you had one film that is considered a cult classic, that fact does not warrant a continuation of that career path. The box office returns for Wrymwood and its sequel can attest to this.
This reviewer is giving Sting a 2.5 out of 5. In a world full of reboots, pandering cinema and whatever in the hell Night Swim was, it is refreshing to see someone revisiting the often forgotten genre of the “giant killer insect/arachnid” genre of years long gone. While this film does not come highly recommended, if you,reader, ever spent your Saturday lunchtimes as a child, eating Spaghetti-O’s and watching Tarantula! During your local T.V. station’s Saturday matinee, you will find Sting to be a much welcome trip to those days when life was so much simpler.
Sting is playing in theaters as of the time of this writing.