Kiah Roache-Turner’s Sting

Maybe the original name of this lethal space-spider was Gordon Sumner, before the little girl who adopts it dubs the creature “Sting.” Why would you pick up a spider of this size, like stray dog? Needless to say, young Charlotte is feeling a little alienated and she will soon be feeling pretty guilty, because it really is sort of all her fault when the spider starts biting in director-screenwriter Kiah Roache-Turner’s Sting, which opens this Friday in theaters.

The spider landed with such velocity, it only bored a small hole through Charlotte’s window pane, but it somehow landed softly enough. It is big and ugly, even by tarantula standards, but she decides to keep it anyway. (The name “Sting” is actually a Hobbit reference.) Charlotte has been sulky since her infant brother was born, because it seems like her mother Heather and stepfather Ethan no longer have time for her. Indeed, neither has much time for anything. He works days as their building super and nights struggling to complete a high-profile freelance comic book commission, while she has restarted her architectural career.

Charlotte’s relationship with Ethan is especially complicated because she assumes her deadbeat birth-father is still abroad, rather than avoiding her. Having more extended family nearby is not helping much. Charlotte still adores her dementia-stricken grandmother, Helga, but Gunter, the mean old aunt who owns the building, is a real pill. The other neighbors are a mixed bag, but she assumes Erik, the self-styled science geek, might be able to help, when Sting starts to be a bit of a handful.

There is considerably more character development in Sting than you get from typical creepy-crawly flicks. There is also some tension-breaking comedic relief provided by Jermaine Fowler as Frank, the exterminator, whose uniform probably intentionally somewhat vaguely resembles that of a Ghostbuster.

However, Charlotte’s 12-year-old angst is maybe too realistic. Honestly, which would you rather deal with, a large alien spider or a moody preteen girl? If you said the arachnid, you’re probably not alone. Still, the attempt to balance credible characters, mostly (but not entirely) practical gross-out effects, and jaded New Yorker humor is appreciated. This is definitely an improvement over Roache-Turner’s disappointing sequel Wyrmwood: Apocalypse, but not as entertaining as the original Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead. The mix needed more tweaking, but Roache-Turner is going in the right direction with his first feature not co-written with his brother, Tristan.

Wyrmwood: Apocalypse

Suddenly, this zombie-mayhem sequel feels awkwardly dated. It isn’t the sinister role played by the military, because that is an ever-present genre cliché. Rather, the fact that the scientist working on a zombie-outbreak cure is so deranged and pointlessly sadistic seems like a relic of 2019. Heck, he has already developed a “vaccine,” but at a tremendous ongoing human cost. Brooke, the surviving human-zombie-hybrid from the first film intends to ruin his mad doctor plans in the Roache-Turners’ Wyrmwood: Apocalypse, which releases digitally this Thursday.

Whatever happened, it turned most of the world into zombies and stopped all fossil fuels from igniting. Somehow, the hardy survivors managed to find a way to harness the power of highly combustible zombie breath. Rhys has managed to power a relatively secure compound solely with captured zombies. He will look familiar to Brooke and her brother, Barry, because they killed his identical twin in the original Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead.

Rhys barters zombies and human specimens for supplies from the insane “Surgeon General” and the ruthless Colonel. However, he does not understand the nature of their “experiments” or the source of the medication that keeps him from getting “twitchy.” Brooke (who has a telepathic link to all zombiedom) initially distrusts Rhys, but they will eventually team up together to rescue another hybrid.

Bianca Brady kicked butt all across the screen in Road of the Dead, but this time around, the Roache-Turner Brothers (director-co-writer Kiah and producer-co-writer Tristan) don’t give her the material to take the character to the next level. Instead of fierce and powerful, she mostly comes across as creepy and unstable. It’s a big disappointment.

There is still a grungy inventiveness to the latest Wyrmwood that is appealing. The Roache-Turners also unleash all kinds of deliriously gory practical effects. It has all the elements of a successful midnight movie, but it just can’t duplicate the “magic” of the first film.

The Roache-Turners’ Nekrotronic

It turns out those mind-numbing internet games are powered by the pentagram rather than Pentium. For millennia, necromancers have battled demons, tooth and nail, but the forces of darkness have really upped their game during the internet age. It is up to a formerly oblivious necromancer and his rag-tag band of allies to foil a web-based scheme for total planetary domination in Kiah & Tristan Roache-Turner’s Nekrotronic, which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

The latest internet game craze is devilishly addictive—and just plain devilish. People think it is cool to be able to view the wraiths and ghosts around them, but they do not realize they are really real. The app also opens up a backdoor through which the demons can suck out users’ souls. Unfortunately, Rangi, Howie North’s mate and partner in the garbage collection trade perishes from his use of the demon app, but he comes back to haunt (or hang with) him as a wraith. It certainly freaks North out, but he will soon have wilder revelations to process.

Basically, as the orphaned son of two esteemed necromancers, he is the prophesized prodigy of all prodigies. Unfortunately, his mother Finnegan succumbed to the dark side and killed his father, right after he managed to arrange magical protections for North. That is all gone now, but at least he gets a crash course in necromancy from three who have survived Finnegan’s relentless war on necromancers—grizzled Luther and his two grown daughters, Molly and Torquel. Oops, make that two surviving necromancers.

Nekrotronic is even more unruly and chaotic than the Roache-Turner Brothers’ Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. With all its flashing lights and over-the-top carnage, Nekrotronic is tailor-made for an ADD-addled generation raised on Candy Crush. That sounds cynical, but its eagerness to please is quite impressive. Frankly, there are a lot of clever elements the Roache-Turners do not fully capitalize on, because they are already moving on to something new and different.

Of course, it helps enormously having Monica Bellucci vamping it up something infernal as Finnegan. It is like she is getting revenge for all the films that roughly abused her characters, most notably Gaspar Noe’s Irreversible. She definitely seems to enjoy being evil, especially when belittling blokes like North.

Ben O’Toole certainly brings out North’s blokiness, but that is appropriate, since he is a rather passive fellow, who just gets caught up in the maelstrom. Bob Epine Savea has plenty of shticky goofball moments as Rangi, but he wears well over time, becoming something of a trusted companion for characters and audience alike. Caroline Ford and Tess Haubrich both step up nicely, assuming the action responsibilities as hard-charging sisters, but the latter really shines as the take-no-prisoners Torquel.

Nekrotronic is quite a bit of fun, but definitely in a meathead kind of way. Yet, that makes it rather refreshing. Recommended for fans of kitchen sink sf-horror hybrids, Nekrotronic opens tomorrow (8/9) in LA, at the Arena.