Studies show that arachnophobia is thought to affect 3.5 to 6.1 per cent of the global population – so it stands to reason they feature in plenty of horror films. This year alone we have had not one, but two spider films grace the big screen with Sting and Infested.
Sting, directed by Wyrmwood creator Kiah Roache-Turner, follows teen Charlotte (Alyla Browne) and her family, made up of mum Heather (Penelope Mitchell), step-dad Ethan (Ryan Corr), and her infant brother Liam. During the coldest winter New York has known for many years, Charlotte finds a strange spider roaming their apartment block and names it Sting, keeping it in a jar in her room. But Sting begins to grow rapidly and develops a taste for blood, picking off the residents of the apartment block one by one.
Sting is now available to watch on digital platforms as well as buy on DVD and Blu-ray, so we chatted with director Kiah to talk about the film’s practical effects, how it balances drama with horror, and Sigourney Weaver’s surprise influence on the project.
STARBURST: How did you come up with the concept of Sting and get the ball rolling on making the film?
Kiah Roache-Turner: Well, I’ve always been arachnophobic. I live in Australia, and I don’t know if you know much about Australia, but we’ve got some of the most venomous snakes, sharks that can swallow you whole, and some of the deadliest, biggest spiders in the world. So, I grew up with that and have intense arachnophobia. I always, as a horror fan, played this game in my head, like, “What’s the scariest thing you could think of? What’s the most horrible thing you could imagine?” For me, the worst thing was a giant spider the size of a pit bull terrier that could bite you, drag you into an air conditioning duct, and eat you slowly over time.
This year, we’ve seen Sting, and also Infested – as well as several other films featuring spiders through the years. Why do you think we’ve had this influx of creature features, particularly spider films?
Don’t you find that those things come in twos or threes? when Armageddon came out, there was Deep Impact. When Robin Hood came out, another came out right after. There’s usually a crocodile movie and then a second crocodile movie. There are usually about 10 shark movies. It’s kind of funny because when I was we were in development, I kept hearing about other spider movies. There was another one that was in development with, I think, Studiocanal that was called Arachnid, which was also about a giant alien spider. Then there’s the James Wan one he’s producing with Steven Spielberg, the reboot of Arachnophobia. Then there was Sting and Infested. I haven’t seen Infested, but man, it looks scarily good. Just the trailer creeped me the hell out.
Sting is set in an apartment block, which creates this claustrophobic atmosphere and a sense of tension. Was it filmed in an actual apartment building?
No, we built the sets in a small studio in Sydney. For a film like this, with all the smoke machines and stunt people being thrown through walls, you can’t just go into an apartment building and do that like. We built the various apartments and corridors in a small studio in Sydney. The apartment building is a pretty standard horror trope everybody’s always talking about. You know, the ideal is a semi-low-budget, single-location horror. That’s like your standard template. But from my perspective, one of my favourite films is Alien and I wanted to do my nod to Alien with the idea that, the Nostromo is basically like a really giant floating apartment building in space. You’ve got this hideous, nightmarish, Lovecraftian monster running around eating people in a sealed space, and I thought I’d do that in New York with an apartment building set it in the dead of the coldest winter in history.
You used practical effects as well as CGI. Did the practical elements create any challenges during production?
Yeah, they can be challenging. We had a creature that was created and built by Weta Workshop. I got to work with my equivalent of Muhammad Ali. They’re just geniuses. But you’ve got a puppet that you need five people to operate and almost one on each leg with a big trolley moving it back and forward. And then you’ve got somebody off to the side remote controlling the head and the mandibles to move up and down. So it’s hard to direct a creature like that. You kind of have to plan it specifically, storyboard it like seven or eight months in advance, then test it, and just hope it works on the day. But I still think it yields better results for horror than CGI. I think CGI is, is a wonderful tool, but it’s a tool. It isn’t the be-all. Horror is a textural medium and you just can’t beat somebody just going, “Boo”, you know what I mean. It’s interacting with the shadows and interacting with the light, and it’s easier to just shove it at the camera, and you can see that the actors are acting against something that’s physically in their space.
Speaking of Weta Workshop, what was your favourite scene to create with them?
There’s a moment in the film where Charlotte and her dad fall down the garbage chute and Charlotte gets knocked out. The spider creeps down the chute, creeps towards her face, and hisses like four inches away from her eyeball. I basically stole that from Alien Three. It’s the moment where Sigourney Weaver is being stabbed by the alien and I wanted to do that with my giant spider and Charlotte. When we shot it, Alyla Browne, who’s playing Charlotte, ran off into the corner and made a phone call. And I’m like, “Alyla, we gotta shoot what are you doing?” And she goes, “I’m just calling Siggy”. And I’m like, “Who’s Siggy?” And she said it’s Sigourney Weaver. She acted in her in The Lost Flowers. She called her and said “I’m acting against this puppet. And like, you’ve done a lot of puppetry stuff. What’s the best advice?” And Sigourney said, “They’re going to tell you to just scream. Don’t scream. React to the puppet and let it be real”. And I was just sitting there going, first of all, it’s amazing that Sigourney Weaver just talked to my lead actress. And also Sigourney Weaver basically said, “Don’t listen to the director.”
Alyla Browne was fantastic as Charlotte. How did she get involved with Sting?
We went to our casting director, Nikki Barrett, and explained that we were looking for this girl, and she’s got to be sort of nine to 10 years old. And she goes, “No, no, cast Alyla Browne. Don’t think about it, don’t waste any time doing auditions, cast her.” I was like, “Wait, who’s the Alyla Browne?” And I started looking at stuff, and it turned out she’s one of the best actors in the country and she’s only 12. She’s got the presence of a veteran actor it’s crazy. She can do a flawless American accent, she can cry on demand, and she’s got a star power that I’ve never really worked with before. She may be one of the most powerful actors I’ve ever worked with. If you can get Alyla Browne in your movie, it’s automatically 20 to 27% better immediately. She’s that good.
Sting is about an alien spider, but it’s also about family. How did you balance those elements in the film?
This is a weirdly personal movie for me. I looked at my own family and decided to write about them. At the time, we just had a new baby, and it was at the beginning of Covid so it was a really scary time with everybody trapped indoors. It was perfect as an influence, but also it was economically challenging. Nobody knew if they had any jobs so it was kind of a brutal time. I couldn’t get any film work, so I started teaching and it was all online, which was bizarre. I also have a stepdaughter who I love very much. I’ve been with her mum since she was two, so we’ve got a very close relationship, and it’s vaguely similar to the one in the movie. We both draw and write. I make movies, but she’s really into graphic art. She’s so smart – so much so that I take concepts and pictures to her and pitch her stuff, and she’ll help me with it. She’s probably gonna be more talented than me. She’s given me great ideas and I put that in the movie. As a family, we all get on pretty well, but you basically take any little problems and dramas and blow them up for the big screen. And that seemed to flow really well and with a truth to it. It’s the nicest reaction I’ve had so I probably should do more of that.
Has your daughter seen the film?
Yeah, she has, and it’s her favourite of mine! She read the script, gave me feedback, and when she saw the final product, she said she really liked it. I was so proud. She’s 18 now and she’s watched my zombie films and stuff, and she thinks they’re pretty good, but she was impressed with Sting. So all I need to do is make a movie that’s based on her life. But yeah, she liked the movie which was very validating for me.
Sting is available now to buy and rent from digital platforms and available to own on Blu-ray and DVD.
