Stung can be a pretty frustrating movie. On the one hand, it has lots of elements B-movie fans like myself totally love but it also has issues that stop it from reaching the heights it could have. It's a German-made killer insect movie that relies more on practical effects than CGI, has a duo of main actors who have good chemistry together and share many droll moments, there's some pretty fun gore and humour, and it has the prerequisite appearance of cult icon Lance Henriksen. At the same time this suffers from some of the most slipshod pacing I've seen in recent memory. It's a movie that's content to kill off almost the entire cast in the first half-hour, has multiple moments where they could have simply rolled end credits (there's at least three times it faded to black and I expected this), and it simply keeps piling on the false endings until it grows tiresome. First time scripter Adam Aresty has come up with some entertaining moments but needs to tighten things up on his next outing while director Benni Diez just needs to learn how to keep focused and pace things much better.

On their way to cater an upper class garden party at a distant mansion, Paul (Matt O'Leary) is failing miserably to flirt with his boss Julia (Jessica Cook) who has inherited the company from her recently passed father. They want to make a good impression and keep the business afloat but they have to deal with all sorts of eccentric people at the party including hostess Mrs. Perch (Eve Slatner), her hunchbacked weirdo son Sydney (Clifton Collins, Jr.), and the alcohol loving mayor Caruthers (Henriksen). Throw into that mix a whole bunch of killer wasps that have mutated to seven-feet-tall and enjoy munching on humans thanks to being exposed to some illegal fertilizer and you have one heck of a party.

Starting off with an amusing and pretty fun set-up things definitely get off to a rapid start as guests and staff alike are flayed with stingers and have our mutant bugs burst through their faces. However, after the first third the makers just aren't able to hold that tone by, as mentioned above, eliminating almost all the cast and becoming a not completely satisfying siege movie mixed with giant bug mayhem. By the time our heroes get to their final showdown with the humongous wasps I just felt indifferent and drained.

This is certainly not the fault of the cast. O'Leary is a lot of fun as slacker Paul and gets to deliver some decent one-liners before being tossed into the hero role and Cook, in her debut, is certainly nice to look at and plays well off of her co-star despite the script weakly trying to throw in a romantic comedy slant to their relationship. Henriksen, who I swear has become less picky over the years, actually doesn't seem to be calling it in like he has a tendency to do as of late and I enjoyed his character being more concerned about how to open a fancy bottle of wine than the wasps. Busy, recognizable character actor Collins, Jr. gets to go way over-the-top as Sydney who, when we first see him, is trying to make Paul protect his secret stash of beer from other guests before delivering an awkward speech and eventually having a controlling wasp-like puppet grow out of his shoulder hump.

I truly wanted to like Stung more than I did. I dug the performances, the monster effects were actually fun and generally lacking the CG I tend to dislike in modern flicks (apart from a few moments in the finale that sort of annoyed me), and it certainly plays better than the similar junk littering SyFy channel's schedule. I believe Aresty and Diez both have the potential to top this in the future and I commend them for attempting to deliver an old school feeling flick but this is not something you're likely to care much about the instant it's over. (Chris Hartley, 4/13/16)

Directed By: Benni Diez.
Written By: Adam Aresty.

Starring: Matt O'Leary, Jessica Cook, Lance Henriksen, Clifton Collins, Jr.