Editorials
Animals Gone Wild: How 2015 Creature Feature ‘Stung’ Stands Out from the Swarm
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.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
You must be logged in to post a comment.