We’ve all seen the hackneyed, poorly CG-ed, primetime Asylum special on SYFY version of Stung too many times before. Director Benni Diez, every producer, and each department head go the extra mile to avoid such a fate for their 80s throwback creature feature. That’s what’s so endearing about a 2015 “When Insects Attack” flick with gigantic ideas and the right approach, rooted in buzzworthy practical effects. Stung would play gangbusters along with other abominations of nature like Zombeavers or Eight Legged Freaks (for different reasons), also classics like Them! or Mosquito, and deserves reappraisal for standing out from the swarm.
Screenwriter Adam Aresty hatched the idea while working on an actual catering gig with a wasp problem, which he morphed into the gonzo invasion that takes place. Julia (Jessica Cook) runs a catering company hired for an annual New York garden party hosted by newly widowed Mrs. Perch (Eve Slatner). Paul (Matt O’Leary) fills the role of Julia’s slacker-cute bartender, who lusts after his boss and is constantly vying for her attention. Setup for the party goes well enough with a little help from Mrs. Perch’s awkward, slightly hunchbacked son Sydney (Clifton Collins Jr.). Thus, the night’s small but swanky villa event begins, interrupted by genetically altered wasps that surge from underground.
All the experimentation and limitless ideas from 80s midnighters are alive and well in Stung. It’s not just about wasps stinging people to death. Once stung, the wasps lay eggs in their new host, rapidly growing and bursting Alien style from whatever they’re nestled within. Maybe it’s some snooty rich stereotype who explodes in a cloud of gore when a seven-foot wasp emerges. Perhaps it’s Mrs. Perch’s pocketbook-sized pooch — yes, the dog dies — who gives birth to a much smaller but still just as deadly oversized wasp. Perch Manor becomes a nest with granite-hard redecorations that resemble a wasp sanctuary, Sydney sprouts a wasp head out of his hump growth like a two-headed brother, and Paul stays the apple of the queen’s eye, who tries to partner him through insectoid ways. Aresty’s B-movie (lol, Bee Movie) foundation is never lost in translation, upheld by Diez and the cast as survival becomes a more and more ridiculous task.
Practical effects play a significant role in the charm of Stung, as mega monster wasps are animatronic rigs operated by puppeteers with insect mutants attached to their waists. Diez cites Tremors, Gremlins, and Slither as inspirations, which becomes evident as mutant wasps with dismembered heads stuck to their pincer legs come face to face with characters, bloody gunk still dripping like off a newborn. All credit goes to Martin Schäper‘s Berlin-based effects company Design of Illusion, who created these red-and-black monstrosities from grunt soldiers to meanie queenies. Diez asked the models to be designed using the real-life tarantula wasp species, given its name because these wasps lay their eggs inside tarantulas (mimicking the host nature of Aresty’s concept). In a world where lower-budget creature features rely more and more on post-production animation, Stung does its best to remain as practical and grossly lifelike as possible.
As Clifton Collins Jr. remarks during the film’s “Making Of” interviews, the sweet spot in horror movies is a blend of practical and digital that complement each other. More times than not, Stung ensures practical oozes and fearsome wasp close-ups remain tangible, and actors aren’t staring down a tennis ball later to be replaced with some shoddy computerized menace. I won’t say Stung is bulletproof when digital takes over — there’s a difference between immaculate practical and make-do CG — but you can tell that Diez understands what audiences crave from these types of horror features.
Diez admits to using “more CG than planned” thanks to principal photography restrictions due to contractual obligations. The film incorporates a blend of practical and digital effects because you couldn’t hide the puppeteer when these honkin’ wasps take flight. Wings and back-halves had to be blended behind practical bodies. With an established visual effects background, you can sense where the director forfeits to post-production additions versus more time-consuming practical effects. Still, Stung is tenfold more committed to remaining practical than hordes of indie horror comparisons before and post-release.
Stung emphasizes the importance of production design and location scouting since heaps of personality come from the mansion territory that became Diez’s filming location (first floor) and production offices (second floor). The 24-day shoot took place in Brandenberg (Northeast German) in this comfortably rustic and sprawling governor’s palace that Diez’s team could refurbish, tear apart, and easily manipulate. From the outdoor party area like out of some Great Gatsby shindig to the stone-laid wine cellar dungeon, Stung doesn’t feel like another slapdash indie in a nondescript building. Details like Mrs. Perch’s sunkissed greenhouse garden, the dankness and mustiness as drunken Mayor Caruthers (primo Lance Henriksen) cracks another vintage bottle, and the queen’s fortified nest are taken with care. You can tell how much Diez and company love the movie they’re making, which is a pleasant atmosphere.
One could gush about the practical effects all day, but characters and performances are just as crucial to selling horror and comedy. Diez reveals an early pitch for Stung was simply Garden State vs. Aliens, which colors the goofball romance between Paul and Julia. Matt O’Leary defines the reluctant hero first seen getting high on the job or juggling flammable canisters to nerdily impress his crush, easy to root for most of the time as an underdog with more to prove (sans one self-unconscious line about being more than Julia’s employee). Jessica Cook plays more Type A and bookish with ample chemistry against O’Leary’s stoner-clumsy companion that Jack Quaid might portray in the bigger budget remake, as Cook eventually bloodies herself and doesn’t shy away from Julia’s hero arc. I’m not saying Stung features an unsung romantic epic under the piles of rotting flesh left behind by wasp births, but endearing lead characters are harder to come by in a subgenre defined by death and decapitations.
Bringing in character actors like Lance Henriksen and Clifton Collins Jr. tips the scales farther into comedy, which isn’t a bad thing. Henriksen reportedly looked to crack-smoking Toronto mayor Rob Ford as a double for Mayor Caruthers, which drives his numbed performance as Caruthers nonchalantly lifts a glass of red wine and saunters to safety during the initial wasp swarm attack (Jurassic World margarita guy vibes). Collins Jr. retreats into the vindictive mamma’s boy who sprouts a little Kuato buddy that unites him with the hivemind, always sleazy with gangly, greasy hair, and so unnerving from the start with purpose. Even one-man-band Larry (Daniele Rizzo) finds a few doofy laughs when interacting with Paul, despite his here-and-gone importance with his creepy pencil-thin mustache. Performances like these veer towards playing for laughs more than not — whether intentional — so please do understand that if you’re not a horror-comedy lover.
Stung is also not an unbeatable experience, so there’s an element of going with the flow that also works well as a disclaimer. You can tell Diez’s working with handcuffs on at times, whether that’s Larry’s off-screen death like he’s brushed under the rug or the lacking body count after initial party-crashing havoc. Stung leans into its classist humor — wasps killing WASPs while the middle-class fight to survive — as outright horror tends to fall wayside. Not a bother for someone like me who’ll cackle at the flirtatious cougar who Paul watches get torn in half from the jaw down as a wasp emerges through extreme violence, yet it might bother those who don’t enjoy the slower second act that’s more chuckles and less action. It’s wacky and wicked in ways that must meet production constraints (time and money), which is never an outright problem but relies on standout practical moments over digital by necessity.
All said, I’m still here begging you to give Stung a chance as Cocaine Bear gets us in the mood for gruesome creature features about when Mother Nature fights back with a vengeance. It’s a monster mash of a slimy, ferocious flick that doesn’t shackle conceptual ambition. Benni Diez holds an indie together that’s honest with its intentions and pure in terms of genre passion, hitting all the right notes in terms of insect puppetry, suitable character empathy, gardening implements carving bodies in half as blood sprays everywhere — you know, The Goods
. If you’re into Big Ass Spider! style B-movies that aim to be more than the next Firenado or Lavalantula, Stung should be on the top of your watch list.
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