Parents' Guide to Sting

This giant-monster-from-space movie has it all: slick filmmaking, clever editing, colorful characters, a fine blend of scares and humor, and, best of all, a great monster. Sting takes place almost entirely inside a moody New York apartment building, with a hissing boiler in the basement, dingy air ducts, and dark apartments; it's the perfect setting for a monster that can walk on ceilings and skitter between walls. The family dynamic is laid out clearly: Charlotte looks up to Ethan, and they've bonded over their comics, but Heather was hurt, badly, by her former husband, and Ethan needs to work extra hard to maintain her trust. The movie also establishes a strong community of neighbors in the building: They all know each other and are familiar enough to drop by each other's places. When they start getting attacked by the spider, it matters, and viewers will care about what happens.

Writer-director Kiah Roache-Turner also has a stockpile of clever sight gags (a spider plant hanging from the ceiling briefly looks like the monster) and perfectly timed edits that give the movie a touch of sly humor and a spiffy pace. (Exterminator Frank, played by Jermaine Fowler, is particularly funny.) The camerawork is fluid and sleek, overcoming any low-budget origins, and even the jump scares are smart. The biggest quibble in Sting is the supporting character of Helga (Noni Hazlehurst); her dementia is used as a source of humor (she can't remember calling the exterminator and thinks the spider is a big dog), which feels like an iffy choice. But otherwise, this is a superior creature feature that's sure to please most horror hounds.