Given its title, one might assume 2024’s Sting a) remakes 1973’s classic The Sting, b) acts as a sequel to 1978’s awful The Swarm, or c) offers a biography of the musician famous for his work with the Police. Instead, it gives us a horror tale related to an arachnid.

Set in New York City, a strange object crashes through a window in a dilapidated apartment complex. This turns out to be an alien egg from which a tiny spider-like creature emerges.

12-year-old Charlotte (Alyla Browne) encounters this critter and adopts it as a pet she dubs “Sting”. However, when Sting begins to grow quickly and exponentially, terrifying events ensue.

Well duh – we do know we get a horror movie. Even if our lead character’s name obviously winks at Charlotte’s Web, Sting doesn’t provide a film for kids.

The question becomes how well Sting executes its scares. The answer? Not very.

Part of the issue comes from the manner in which the film telegraphs the story and developments. Sting opens with a segment that doesn’t show what menace the characters will encounter but nonetheless demonstrates the presence of a deadly threat.

The film immediately takes us back to “four days earlier” and depicts the arrival of the mysterious egg/spider. It doesn’t take much to put two and two together to figure out that this entity will cause the prologue’s mayhem.

I get that the filmmakers realize viewers likely will know the movie’s basic plot in advance so they probably feel no need to keep anything secret. Still, it feels like a bad choice to me, as all suspense ends up jettisoned out the window since we know where matters will go right off the bat.

Ideally, Sting should view the creature’s development and ensuring terror through Charlotte’s eyes. That would allow tension to develop naturally.

Which Sting then attempts. After the “spoiler” launch to the film, it pushes ahead in the manner one might expect.

Because we know precisely where the story will go, however, the viewer seems likely to grow impatient. Since we realize that horrible events will occur, the movie’s pursuit of this more standard narrative evolution turns tedious instead of intriguing.

This doesn’t mean I think Sting would deliver a great horror tale even without the misguided prologue, though. The movie lacks tonal consistency and seems unsure where it wants to go.

At its heart, the film desires to give us a rowdy mix of comedy and horror. However, the end result tosses in a lot of fairly unnecessary family drama.

Charlotte lives with mom Heather (Penelope Mitchell), stepdad Ethan (Ryan Corr) and infant half-brother Liam. This leads to familial tensions that feel superfluous in terms of what the film wants to become at its core.

As such, Sting never finds its groove. It juggles a lot of balls and flits from comedy to satire to straight-out horror without consistency.

Sting also wears many influences on its sleeve. In addition to the usual scary movie suspects, we find nods to flicks such as 1979’s Alien, 1984’s Gremlins and 1986’s Labyrinth.

Nothing about the basic concept of Sting condemns it to failure. The general notion of a man-eating alien spider brings enough natural juice to make the film entertaining if executed well.

However, Sting just doesn’t get there, mainly because it tries too hard to be all things to all people. With a muddled tone and inconsistent pacing, the final product doesn’t click.

Footnote: two tiny tag scenes appear in the early part of the end credits.

Sting appears in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This largely turned into an appealing presentation.

For the most part, definition seemed good. The many low-light shots brought a little softness, but the majority of the film boasted appealing delineation.

Jagged edges and moiré effects didn’t mar the presentation, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws also failed to appear.

In terms of palette, Sting went with a standard teal orientation embellished with a fair amount of amber/orange as well. Within stylistic choices, the hues seemed well-depicted.

Blacks were dark and dense, and shadows gave us good clarity. Despite a bit more softness than I’d prefer, I felt pleased with this transfer.

As for the DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio, it offered a mostly typical horror movie soundscape. This meant a fair amount of creepy atmosphere and occasional “jolt moments”.

Along with good stereo music, the soundfield was able to open things up in a satisfying manner that embellished the story. We got a nice sense of various elements along with a useful sense of the spooky bits, some of which worked really well.

The nature of the title character meant some good “creepy-crawly” elements. These managed to give the track a lot of movement and engagement. Some winter weather added nice involvement as well.

Audio quality was always good. Music appeared full and rich, while effects demonstrated nice clarity and accuracy. Low-end appeared deep and rich.

Speech was natural and distinctive throughout the film. The mix used the speakers well and created a fine sense of the material.

We find three Behind the Scenes featurettes: “Creating the Monster’ (6:03), “The Director” (6:17) and “The Cast” (7:02). Across these, we get remarks from writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner, producers Michael Pontin, Chris Brown and Jamie Hilton, Weta Workshop’s Richard Taylor, costume designer Georgia Woods, and actors Penelope Mitchell, Ryan Corr, Alyla Browne, Jermaine Fowler, and Robyn Nevin.

The programs look at the project’s roots as well as creature design and execution, Roache-Turner’s work on the film, story/characters, cast and performances. We get a mix of insights and fluff, though the former dominates.

The disc opens with ads for The Last Stop in Yuma County, Monolith and A Creature Was Stirring. We also find the trailer for Sting.

Despite a sturdy premise at its core, Sting doesn’t connect as a horror tale. It spreads itself too thin and becomes only intermittently satisfying. The Blu-ray boasts positive picture and audio as well as minor bonus materials. While never a bad film, Sting just fails to deliver the scary goods.