creepy crawlies – Horror Ghouls

Sting (2024)

Posted on December 3, 2024December 3, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

In a somewhat dilapidated apartment building, a mischievous and rebellious 12-year old girl, Charlotte, gets an unexpected pet when a glowing object crash-lands in her aunt’s apartment. From said object, a tiny spider hatches (nothing suspicious about that, right?), and Charlotte decides to keep it and names it Sting. Upon feeding it, it keeps growing at an alarming rate (still nothing suspicious about that, it seems), but she still decides to keep her new pet a secret from the rest of her family: her mother, her step-father (who is a comic book artist that creates a project in collaboration with her, which proves to go a bit sour) and of course her baby brother who is too little to understand anything at this point anyway. Her biological father is living abroad and that’s the reason he can’t show her any attention (or at least so she’s told). A little family drama aside, the real problem here is Sting’s growing appetite which makes it search for other prey. While Charlotte keeps it in a jar, it’s smart enough to open the hatch and get outside to do a little night-hunting. And now the entire apartment building are in danger from a spider that keeps growing and keeps eating…

Sting is a horror film from 2024, directed by Kiah Roache-Turner. The director, being from Australia, said that the inspiration for this movie comes from his fear of spiders: “I have raging arachnophobia because I’m an Australian, and everything in Australia is trying to kill you“. Truer words could not have been spoken. I’m thankful for the tiny and harmful little buggers we have here in Norway! Here, you’re not likely to get killed by any wildlife, aside from the odd chance of getting in the way of a very angry moose. And even that is highly unlikely.

Now, Sting is yet another creature feature about a monstrous spider, which we’ve had a few entries of as of late and with some similarities. Just like in Vermin (2023), the story is taking place in an apartment building and affects the population there, and like in the cheese-flick Arachnid (2001) the spider comes from outer space. Other than that, it manages to stand on its own legs and differs mostly in how it’s got a nearly family-friendly tone over it, where it almost starts a little heartwarming while Charlotte bonds with Sting. Then, the grisly murders committed by the monster-spider are quick to remind us that this is a horror film after all. Hadn’t it been for the violent deaths, Sting could easily have been more of a children’s thriller (nothing wrong with that, of course).

The movie does focus a bit on family drama, and while some of it was fun enough (like the overly grumpy old aunt and her antics) others parts of it felt a little contrived. What makes the movie entertaining, at least for my part, is the spider itself and the mayhem it causes. Many of the angles, having the camera lead us into air ducts, claustrophobic little hallways and so on, helps building the suspense and a feeling that the creepy-crawly could be anywhere.

There’s also more than a few references to be found in the movie, where the most obvious is the girl’s name being Charlotte (a reference to Charlotte’s Web, a well-known story about a pig becoming friends with a clever spider named Charlotte). And one of the characters carrying a nail gun for “protection“ is most likely a reference to Arachnophobia from 1990. The special effects in the movie are also pretty good, with several of them being practical effects. Richard Taylor was involved in the effects for the movie (whose company, Weta Workshop, also made effects for Lord of the Rings among several others).

Sting is a satisfying little addition to the creature feature list involving spiders, with some very nice special effects.

Writer and director: Kiah Roache-Turner
Country & year: Australia, USA, 2024
Actors: Noni Hazlehurst, Jermaine Fowler, Alyla Browne, Robyn Nevin, Ryan Corr, Kate Walsh, Penelope Mitchell, Jett Berry, Kade Berry, Silvia Colloca
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt20112746/

Arachnid (2001)

Posted on November 29, 2024November 29, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Joli Mercer is piloting a stealth plane in the South Pacific, when a translucent spacecraft suddenly appears (in a scene with such godawful CGI effects it could have belonged in The Amazing Bulk). Poor Joli crashes with the thing as his plane begins to malfunction, but his bad luck doesn’t end there. He crashes on an island, together with the alien ship. He sees a desperate-looking translucent alien-thing which is suddenly attacked by a giant spider monster, which then kills Joli as well. Then, ten months later, Joli’s sister is on the search for him. She’s been hired to be the pilot of a medical expedition who are doing research after natives on the island have started dying from an unknown virus. Upon reaching the island, the plane starts malfunctioning and they need to do an emergency landing on the beach. From there on, they have to trudge through the jungle in order to reach their destination, and they discover that the insects around the area have mutated into large and more deadly creatures. One of the guys in the expedition gets attack by giant ticks that starts burrowing into his body, and a giant centipede is killing one of the natives. And no, they didn’t crash-land on Skull Island. Aside from all the horrible creatures, the biggest threat of them all is a giant spider: the killer arachnid from outer space.

You know a movie is a stinker when the director himself says he only did it for the money… “I basically did it for the money and it was a stupid script … I got to live in Barcelona for six months and, you know, they paid me well. Everything was good except I had to go to work everyday and shoot a dumb script. I haven’t seen that one since, you know, I made it. And some people say ‘Oh well, it’s actually better than you think’, but I basically tell people to avoid that one“ is what Jack Sholder (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge, The Hidden) said about this film. Alright, then, that’s a way to wash your hands clean of something. We all need food on the table and can’t always work on passion projects…

Arachnid was released in 2001, and was the second film to be released under the Fantastic Factory Label (the first one being Faust: Love of the Damned from 2000) which was created by Brian Yuzna (Society, The Dentist) and Julio Fernandez in Spain. It was written by Mark Sevi, and then re-written together with Yuzna. The main spider design and the other creatures that used practical effects, were created by Steve Johnson. The film received a very negative reception upon its release, and while it’s easy to see this is “one of those“ movies, it’s actually a bunch of fun, much thanks to the practical effects which are actually pretty decent and feels like a nice little throwback. Already from the funnily sloppy opening scene you know what you’re in for, so better brace yourself for leaving your brain on the shelf for a little while. As we get introduced to character by character, one more clichéd than the other, the killings and creatures are what’s the highlight of the movie. There isn’t a huge amount of gore here (which is a shame, really, as that could have added an extra spritz on the already goofy concept), but there’s still some nice scenes, especially the one involving the ticks that eat their way out. Yum.

What makes the movie suffer from being a truly fun B-horror movie, is that the pacing is a bit too slow and the characters feel a bit too dull. A quicker pace, more interesting characters and more kills could have lifted the movie up several notches. Yes, it would still have been a “bad“ movie, but a bit more enjoyable. Overall though, Arachnid is a fun enough creature feature B-movie with some charming old-school effects.

Director: Jack Sholder
Writer: Mark Sevi
Country & year: Spain, USA, Mexico, 2001
Actors: Chris Potter, Alex Reid, José Sancho, Neus Asensi, Ravil Isyanov, Luis Lorenzo Crespo, Rocqueford Allen, Jesús Cabrero, Robert Vicencio
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0271972/

Vermines (2023)

Posted on November 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

In a Middle Eastern desert, a bunch of Arab smugglers are hunting for spiders. One of them gets bitten, and it becomes obvious that these little eight-legged creatures carry something worse than a sting with their bite: his companion immediately kills him with a machete. When a bite by a spider may cause something worse than swift death, you know it’s bad. I almost expected one of the Arabs to shout “Singaya!” because this opening reminded me a lot of Braindead (Dead-Alive) by Peter Jackson. I’m actually wondering if perhaps it was a subtle reference.

After this we head over to Paris, where young Kaleb wants to buy something for his girlfriend. For her, he gets a pair of earrings, and for himself, an exotic spider. Because why not. Kaleb is not only a sneakers dealer (yes, you got that right, not drugs but actual sneakers, like in the shoes) he is also an exotic animal lover who’s got his room full of little creepy crawlies. Back home in his run-down apartment building, he puts the spider in a shoebox and plans to find a better place for it later. The spider’s got other plans though: it chews itself out of the place, lays some eggs and all hell breaks loose. When more and more people end up dying due to bites, the entire building is put in lockdown by the authorities as they suspect some viral disease. The inhabitants are then trapped inside with an ever-growing amount of deadly spiders…

Vermines (english title: Infested) is a French horror film from 2023, directed by Sébastien Vaniček and co-written with Florent Bernard. The exterior buildings are filmed in the Picasso arenas in Noisy-le-Grand, near Paris, designed by architect Manuel Núñez Yanowsky in the 80s. This sets the film up for some really unique visuals for the exterior shots. It also doesn’t rely solely on CGI for the spiders, and in fact, most of the scenes are filmed with real ones (so no actors with arachnophobia here, I guess).

If spiders gives you the creeps, you better brace yourself for this one. The setting of a decaying apartment building, infested with dangerous spiders, sure makes a claustrophobic and nightmarish setting. What makes everything even creepier is how they use real spiders for most of the scenes, with several close-up shots and scenes where the spiders come crawling out of places, all of it sure to make your skin crawl! The classic spider horror movie Arachnophobia (1990) also used real spiders: Avondale spiders (Delena Cancerides), while in Vermines they used approx 200 giant huntsman spiders (Heteropoda maxima). No cute Lucas-spider types to be seen here, in other words.

The characters in the movie are people who live in the poorer French suburbs, struggling with getting by. The director also stated that the film is based on his own experience living in such tight-knit communities, which were often viewed upon with strong bias by outsiders, causing discrimination and irrational fears of the places and the people who lived there. So yeah, the movie does offer a bit of social commentary, with the original title literally meaning “vermin“, a term which can be used for both parasitic and harmful insects/animals, but also for people perceived to be causing problems for the rest of society. So all of that mixed with a neglected apartment building, some tension between the characters and a bunch of real spiders, and you end up with a very decent animal-attack movie. I guess it does end up more in the creature-feature category along the ride, though.

Vermines (Infested) is a solid spider horror film, with some effectively creepy scenes that gives you the ick whether you actually have arachnophobia or not.

Vaniček is also going to direct the next Evil Dead movie, and it will be interesting to check that one out when it comes.

Director: Sébastien Vanicek
Writers: Sébastien Vanicek, Florent Bernard
Country & year: France, 2023
Also known as: Infested
Actors: Théo Christine, Sofia Lesaffre, Jérôme Niel, Lisa Nyarko, Finnegan Oldfield, Marie-Philomène Nga, Mahamadou Sangaré, Abdellah Moundy, Ike Zacsongo, Emmanuel Bonami
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26744289/