Sting (2024)

"The Spider From Mars?"

Following its recent UK cinema release, Kiah Roache-Turner's alien arachnid movie gets a digital home premiere courtesy of Studio Canal.

That's right - the spider in this film is an alien that's concealed with a meteorite that crashes at the start of the film. It's christened 'Sting' by little Charlotte (Alyla Browne) who discovers it inside a doll's house and takes its name from her copy of Tolkien's The Hobbit. So all those of you worrying because spiders are generally considered to bite rather than sting can now rest easy.

Spiders don't exhibit the capacity to grow at a phenomenal rate either, but this one certainly does after Charlotte has fed it a few cockroaches and her new pet has escaped to consume a parrot and a cat before moving onto bigger prey. 

STING is set in a gloomy, claustrophobic apartment block. The recent French spider horror INFESTED aka VERMINES had a similar setting but this is a lot more fun and with much more likeable characters. Roache-Turner was also responsible for the highly entertaining 2014 post-apocalypse film WYRMWOOD and the sense of playfulness with the subject matter is in evidence here. It takes a little while to get going but creature feature nuts and those who fancy seeing an apartment block of eccentric and curious characters getting attacked by an (eventually) enormous alien spider thing will find lots to enjoy. Here's the trailer:

KIAH ROACH-TURNER's STING is still playing in some UK cinemas, will be available to buy or rent on digital platforms on Monday 15th July, and gets its Blu-ray release on Monday 19th August 2024