Stung (2015)
Starring Clifton Collins, Jr.; Jessica Cook, Matt O’Leary, Lance Henriksen
Directed by Benni Diez
No one would wonder why a giant mutated wasp movie needed to be made. And then we have Benni Diez’s Stung, a film wholly lacking in ambition and, at its worst, any commitment to be fun, scary, engaging, or anything worth our time. It does have gigantic bugs in it but delivers little else to its audience.
We have been down this path before: Tarantula (1955), The Food of the Gods (1976), Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959), Ticks (1993), and of course the crowning glory that is Them! (1954). The themes are the same: short-sightedness leads to environmental disaster and Nature’s revenge. In Stung, pesticides cause wasps to mutate into killers bent on destroying… a garden party. Wasps killing W.A.S.P.S? It could perhaps be the socio-political read, but the movie never seems to bother with exploring its own possibilities.
After the initial attack, a group of survivors are holing up in a mansion. Paul (O’Leary) and Julia (Cook) even manage to keep some of the heat up as their friends die around them. Trapped alongside these characters is Mayor Caruthers, played, as always, with charm and grace by Lance Henriksen. You put Henriksen in movies from Dog Day Afternoon (1975) to anything with a Bigfoot in it, and he is the one to watch. There are no bad Lance Henriksen performances, just bad Lance Henriksen movies; sorry to say, this is one of those times in which his good performance is caught up in a bad movie.
The effects are mostly practical (with some Syfy-caliber CGI), but the bugs themselves are never dynamic enough in design to look like anything but really big wasps, who spend more time loitering inside a million-dollar estate than attacking. The wasp-human hybrids are a bit more fun, but only a bit… wasp-human hybrids should never only be “a bit” more fun.
The film goes for neither effective scares nor high camp, or even just insane gore. Stung is working within the typical siege scenario framework. You are isolated to a single location and need to keep the shark from getting you or the alien worms from eating you. In these cases you are left with an ensemble of conflicting characters to pull you though the lulls or wall-to-wall gags if you could not be bothered to build a story. That’s fine: The zombie and slasher sub-genres are built on set pieces and cool looking monsters, and they bring joy. At least they bring me joy. But please, bring something to the table. Make me laugh or cry, create tension, have me like one character—Stung is not able, or perhaps willing, to achieve any of these.
At the script level it is lacking. The film needs more. More bugs, more terror, more giant-wasp mayhem. The final product is a sketch based on its thin premise. It delivers to the bare minimum of audience expectation just what it is sold to be: giant insects attack people. More could have been done with the social commentary which exists in the film as undeveloped notes. An incompetent mayor, the attack of creatures on the privileged class, who is behind the foreign fertilizer? Is it the corporations sticking it to the rich? There could have been a revenge plot that they are to blame for their own downfall because of their decisions. There could have just been a catalog of variations on the terrible things that extra-jumbo wasps can do to the human body. Anything. Anything to break up the tedium of this film.
I wish I could recommend Stung. It has some good FX work and one of the most legendary genre actors of our time, but nothing happens. Nothing is done with the concept that warrants anyone to watch it but those tasked with reviewing it. As an alternative, I might suggest Slugs: The Movie (1988) due to the black crawly things having what seem to be plastic vampire fangs when they bite people in close-up. That film at least dares to be stupid, and I love it for that. It isn’t too proud or too lazy to entertain.
Stay away from Stung. Much like the poster art threatens, it’s like having stingers inserted into your eyes.
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Film
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