Sting (2024) [Blu-Ray]

Director: Kiah Roache-Turner

Cast: Alyla Browne, Penelope Mitchell, Ryan Corr

Release Date: July 30, 2024

A Review By: Kevin Lovell

Film Rating: 6.5/10
Disc Rating: 6.5/10

Synopsis:

After raising an unnervingly talented spider in secret, 12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne) must face the facts about her pet—and fight for her family’s survival—when the once-charming creature rapidly transforms into a giant, flesh-eating monster.

‘Sting’ tells the horrifying story of a young girl named Charlotte who discovers a mysterious spider that unbeknownst to her crash landed from above into the apartment complex she calls home. After taking in, feeding and raising the spider that she dubs “Sting” things take a terrifying turn when pets and residents of the building begin mysteriously dying and disappearing. As the tenants of the complex hire exterminators and attempt everything possible to track down and eliminate the new threat to their homes, Sting only continues to grow and become something far more dangerous and deadly than any of them could imagine.

Written and directed by Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, Nekrotronic) who does a capable job at the helm of ‘Sting’ guiding along the fun, terror and excitement with a sense of dread and style. The film’s cast includes Alyla Browne (Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga), Penelope Mitchell (Hellboy 2019), Ryan Corr (TV’s House of the Dragon) and Jermaine Fowler (The Blackening) who each contribute decent and fitting performances for the most part in their respective roles.

‘Sting’ is an enjoyable and creepy tale of one girl’s newly discovered secret pet that evolves into a monster of unthinkable size and ferocity and soon becomes everyone in her apartment complex’s worst nightmare. It’s a fun and fittingly bloody horror outing that’s both a giant spider movie and an alien attack movie in its own right, although the origins and outer space concept are fortunately not focused on very significantly. A gloomily shot thriller that’s loaded with more than enough jump scares to keep those that are more easily put on edge from ever feeling comfortable throughout its duration and while it never really reaches the level of remarkable nor does it ever really become truly scary or unnerving (at least for us genre fans, while those of you that are terrified of spiders to begin with may see this film in an entirely different way) it keeps the terror, kills and eerie fun moving swiftly, with a fair bit of humor sprinkled in; mostly thanks to the ever amusing Jermaine Fowler who is responsible for many of the lighter moments.

Filmmaker Kiah Roache-Turner who first came to my attention upon reviewing ‘Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead’ about nine years ago continues to prove a solid force in the genre and while ‘Sting’ isn’t quite as spectacular as a few other films in Roache-Turner’s resume it still delivers ample amounts of fun and unpleasant terror here that certainly make it worth giving a chance. A capable cast led by the talented young Alyla Browne helps to keep it from ever falling into overly silly or goofy territory and a splendidly bleak atmosphere and often notably dark lighting help to keep the viewer adequately on edge. It never really excels to spectacular in any department although it does at least hold up adequately in each. If you’re a fan of giant spider or killer monster films then this one will probably be right up your alley and is recommended.

VIDEO:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Sting’ features a full 1080p High Definition presentation with the film’s original 1.85:1 Aspect Ratio. The video presentation looks quite good as a whole and provides a largely clean, sharp and well detailed presentation throughout that never suffers from any significant problems or faults along the way, although a few overly dark moments do see the occasional bit of banding detectable, but never in a detrimental or overly distracting manner. Detail is sharp and solid for the most part with character faces and clothing, along with the various interiors of the complex looking very nice throughout, while black levels are generally deep and clean. Overall, this is a pretty solid high definition video presentation that looks great aside from a few brief imperfections and it should leave fans and first time viewers satisfied.

AUDIO:

The Blu-ray release features a 5.1 channel DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack. This multichannel soundtrack does its job well and offers a clean, crisp and occasionally quite aggressive audio presentation throughout. It utilizes all five available channels in order to send music, some creepy and action/attack related effects, plus the spider skittering and other tidbits here and there moving throughout the various speakers whenever appropriate, while never causing any dialogue or other audio elements that might be occurring simultaneously to become distorted or rendered problematic along the way. Overall, this is a capable 5.1 DTS-HD MA soundtrack that contributes some fun immersion into the terror throughout and shouldn’t disappoint.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

The Blu-ray release of ‘Sting’ includes the Behind the Scenes Featurettes ‘Creating the Monster’ (running approximately 6 minutes in length), ‘The Director’ (running approximately 6 minutes) and ‘The Cast’ (approximately 7 minutes), along with the film’s ‘Trailer’ (2 minutes).

*Please note that the above images are taken from the Blu-Ray and resized. They will additionally suffer quality loss as a result of .jpg compression. Larger versions of each image can be viewed by clicking on the image. All images and content included on this Blu-Ray release are the property of their respective owners.

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Film Rating: 6.5/10
Disc Rating: 6.5/10

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‘Sting’ Arrives on Blu-ray & DVD July 30, 2024 & is Now Available on Digital from Well Go USA

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You can purchase ‘Sting’ on Blu-ray at Amazon HERE!

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