**WARNING: Contains major spoilers for Sting**

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If you have even a hint of arachnophobia, you'd do well to avoid Sting – the brand new creature feature from Australian writer/director Kiah Roache-Turner.

The horror film follows events after a young girl named Charlotte (Alyla Browne) adopts a spider that mysteriously appears in her apartment building, only for it to quickly become apparent that this is no ordinary arachnid.

Not only does the spider – which she names Sting – grow to an abnormally huge size, it is also revealed to have a killer touch when it murders an innocent parrot in brutally vicious fashion.

Of course, it doesn't stop there: soon Charlotte and her family – including her stepdad Ethan (Ryan Corr) – are in grave danger as the spider continues its rampage.

If you've seen the film and need a recap of how it all ends up, you can read on to have the Sting ending explained.

Meanwhile, we also spoke exclusively to Roache-Turner to find out if there are plans to continue the story with another film. Read on for everything you need to know.

Sting ending explained: How do they kill Sting?

Ryan Corr as Ethan in Sting. He is looking aghast at a giant spider
Ryan Corr as Ethan in Sting. StudioCanal

As Sting continues to grow at an alarming rate, the scale of his attacks escalates until he is successful in trapping Charlotte's mother, younger sister and Ethan in the apartment building – which prompts Charlotte to search for the spider and kill it.

As she sets about this plan, she makes the observation that the spider has not once pestered her grandmother Helga, and surmises that this is due to her constantly smelling of mothballs.

Armed with this knowledge, Charlotte combines mothballs with water to concoct a potion which she can use to fend off Sting and save her family – spraying some of it over herself to give her protection.

She finds Ethan and uses the mothball water to rescue him, and they escape just as pest control guy Frank turns up at the building.

Charlotte and Ethan continue to do battle with Sting using the remaining mothball water, but Frank – who is now also in Sting's sights – is not very good at keeping his composure, and is ultimately killed.

In the climatic battle, Ethan is bitten by Sting before Charlotte uses her ingenuity to crush the spider by pressing a button that closes a heavy door directly on top of it.

Meanwhile, despite his brush with death, Ethan is shown to have survived his wounds and he and Charlotte make amends after a falling out earlier in the film, with the whole family reuniting in safety.

But just as it looks like they're in the clear, the film ends with the terrifying image of an egg hatching – revealing that there are more giant spiders where Sting came from. Better get stocked up on those mothballs...

Will there be a sequel to Sting?

The ending of the film leaves the door wide open for a sequel – and when asked if that was the plan during an exclusive interview with RadioTimes.com, director Kiah Roache-Turner was unambiguous in his hopes for continuing the story.

"Oh, are you kidding? Any time I do a movie, I come up with a sequel," he explained, before adding that he had already made some solid progress when it comes to planning the next film.

"You know, I've already written the treatment," he said. "I could write the sequel to Sting in like a week. It's called Children of Sting. I know exactly what happens. I've got the whole thing planned out."

He continued: "Richard [Taylor] has the creature sitting in a top drawer in the Weta workshop. And if, you know, we can convince somebody to give us a couple of million dollars, we'll do the sequel. And, you know, we'll [get] out the creature and we'll do it all again. I certainly hope that happens!"

Sting is now showing in UK cinemas.

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Authors

Patrick Cremona, RadioTimes.com's senior film writer looking at the camera and smiling
Patrick CremonaSenior Film Writer

Patrick Cremona is the Senior Film Writer at Radio Times, and looks after all the latest film releases both in cinemas and on streaming. He has been with the website since October 2019, and in that time has interviewed a host of big name stars and reviewed a diverse range of movies.

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