What is is about Spiders? Sound design for "Sting" review

Spiders are a go-to for horror directors, for obvious reason. They are often venomous. They have those beady clusters of eyes. That uncomfortable scuttling way of moving and jumping. The fangs! All those legs!! Deep in our subconscious we just know that if they were big enough, they would have no qualms wrapping us up and sucking out our juices.

Sting, directed by Kiah Roache-Turner, taps into all these primal fears, and more. But it deviates somewhat in initially presenting the creature as a pet; something that can be appreciated, and even loved. (Funnily, this is at one of two films I saw last year about a giant, talking alien spider.)

It starts with a very engaging premise, that of the relationship between a teenage girl going through difficult family circumstances and this semi-intelligent alien creature. Alyla Browne’s Charlotte is having a hard time adjusting to the fact that her dad has left and stepfather has stepped in. She captures a spider that has arrived via a passing asteroid, which quickly exhibits a biology far ahead of our terrestrial spiders. It grows at an extreme rate. It talks – or at least vocalises – and understands basic commands. And like the news stories of octopuses sneaking out of their aquariums and prowling around the laboratory at night, Sting is able to escape her jar and crawl about the apartment complex through the ubiquitous air vents.

The use of surround mixing is excellent here, mixer Phil Heywood showing a confident and bold use of the whole space. The offscreen crawling of the (now giant) spider through the ducts is as convincing as WĒTĀ Workshop’s top-tier visual fx. Likewise, sound designer Lachlan Harris has carried on a long and proud tradition of intense and grotesque bug vocalisations for Sting’s vocal effects. There are clicks, crunches, screeches, hisses and slimy squelches, all staple to big-bug vocals. As much as the stand-out sound effects, are the so-called ‘background’ sounds. The freezing, rainy weather; the howling vents; the crumbling apartment creaks and groans; the thrums and rumbles of distant and failing electrics. These ‘ambient’ sounds are not necessarily noticed consciously by the audience, but they provide the creepy factor that is impossible to block out. This last part is crucial to what makes a horror soundtrack successful. Our sense of hearing is evolved to work to protect us whether we are actively listening or not. This is a hangover from when we lived and slept in the wild, surrounded by all manner of creatures that wanted to eat us. Sound designers exploit this trait to excellent effect as in this film, subtly invoking and building the sense of unease and tension. A sonic bed which the more noticeable sound effects can nestle.

Standing out to me most though, was the use of symbolism. Cinematographer Brad Shield deserves special credit for the beautiful gags and misidentified double takes (many times characters think they have seen a spider, only for it to be revealed as a shadow or something else innocuous). And the use of the dollhouse as a foreshadowing mechanism is to me a stroke of delicious genius. These moments can only work effectively with the support of carefully crafted sound design. Try watching them with the sound down, and notice the reduced impact.

With the mandatory final shot setting up Sting 2, I would love the director to explore more of the idea of the relationship between human girl and beast, as this idea is much more fascinating to me that the monster-chase it ultimately became. The sound design possibilities of introducing a bit more intelligence, even dialogue, into the spider are extremely enticing.