I originally saw STUNG back at Tribeca and fell in love it. It’s a crazy over the top horror comedy that perfectly mixes the horror and the comedy. I loved is so much that I had planned on taking my brother to see it at a press screening last week simply because I thought he had to see it on the big screen (sadly trouble on the LIRR made that impossible)
The plot of the film has a bickering pair of caterers who are destined to become a romantic couple, setting up for a swanky party in the country. (And please over look that everything from cars to houses and landscape look like its somewhere in Germany or Austria because this is set in the American South) . Once the party gets going things rapidly go wrong as the party is set up near a nest of wasps… And what big wasps they are…and they seem to be getting bigger by the moment. Soon it’s a battle for survival and It’s up to the bickering couple to try and save as many people as possible, including themselves.
Crazy, over the top, with some genuinely earned jump scares and numerous gruesome gallows humor belly laughs STUNG is a great deal of fun. Well aware that the situation in the film is inherently silly, the film makers go with it and use the clichés of the nature on the rampage, giant insect/monster movies to play with the audience. They know we know there are times where we will expect certain things to happen and then they will turn the situation to get a scare or a laugh. The increasing size of the wasps is there simply to up the ante and give a new danger. And lest anyone think this is played all for laughs many of the deaths are gross or shocking and in the case of wasps inside people really horrifying.
If there is a problem with the film, it’s that the first fifteen minutes are really creaky. It’s the sort of cliché filled set up that is going to make the inpatient want to turn the film off. Of course once the wasps appear the film kicks it into high gear, but anyone coming in from the star is going to have to be patient and wait for their arrival.
I love this film a great deal. It the perfect film to curl up with on the couch or in a theater with friends. Best of all it’s a rare film that’s going to work a film that you can just watch and enjoy for itself, or watch with friends and comment on on. It’s a film that goes both ways and we are better for it
STUNG hits theaters and VOD on Friday
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