Sting is a fairly generic pulp creature feature about a giant not-spider alien spider which, ahem, infests an apartment building. It lacks a certain actual scare factor, instead leaning more on pulpy horror with occasional comedy mixed in.

I enjoyed the movie on a fairly low level… it’s good enough but, as a scary movie, I was neither scared nor did my skin crawl… and I bet most people will agree unless they go in with pre-existing arachnophobia. I’m largely not afraid of spiders as long as they mind their place, so the pretty predictable spider-like scares mostly didn’t work for me. But it’s clear they were have having boo jump fun making it so I’ll allow most of the attempts.

Surprisingly, what I liked most was a surprisingly good family dynamic… usually something horror films try and fail at. But the stepdad/stepdaughter relationship kind of worked for me. It helped they had a shared bond over horror/adventure comic books which was very much on message for this flick’s pulpy sensibilities.

It has some pretty good gore and violence and the spider is largely convincing… not very spider-like really, but well realized. Even if I frown as it vocalizing in a way that spiders do not (but it’s ok… it’s a non-spider alien spider).

Sting is a pretty decent bit of fun. Not a particular success as a scary movie but a decently fun creature feature. Maybe if you are really really really freaked out by spiders, you might even get some skin crawling going on. I did not.

Score: 75