Craving some alien spider insanity? Sting's the film for you

This week, a horror film – and with it, a whole load of alien spider insanity. If you’ve been hankering after a whole load of alien spider insanity, then Sting will hit the spot. As a rule, I avoid this genre, as I still suffer from nightmares after bunking off school to see The Exorcist (aged 12), but this is playful, B-movie horror rather than horror horror. It’s 90 minutes of silly, daft fun. I think I’ll leave a shorter gap between these films in future. Maybe every 35 years rather than every 40?

I think I’ll leave a shorter gap between horror films in future. Maybe every 35 years?

It’s from writer-director Kiah Roache-Turner and it’s set in an apartment building in Brooklyn. If it’s not a cabin in the woods, it’s an apartment building. I suppose it’s because apartment buildings offer dimly lit corridors and the opportunity to terrorise multiple households and air duct systems involving those ventilation shafts that no one can crawl through but, for cinematic purposes, they can. (The top ventilation-shaft films are probably: Dr. No, Die Hard, Alien, and the first Mission: Impossible, although in this one it was actually feasible, as Tom Cruise is very small.)

The insanity begins with an alien egg crashing to earth, ending up in one of the apartment rooms, opening like a Venus fly trap, and hatching a little black spider. It’s discovered by Charlotte (Alyla Browne), a young girl who opts to keep it as a pet and names it Sting.

The movie is also a family drama. Charlotte’s dad is out of the picture, but she does have a stepfather, Ethan (Ryan Corr), who is a comic book artist as well as janitor of the building. They’ve, however, yet to bond.