The latest addition to the well-populated sub-genre of spider-horror (see also Eight Legged Freaks, Arachnophobia, Possum and a whole host of skittering, venomous B-movies), Sting is an effectively grisly Australian production that sees the pet spider of a lonely little girl wreak havoc in a down-at-heel apartment block.

Alyla Browne, most recently seen as the young Furiosa, is terrific as spiky 12-year-old Charlotte, who channels her abandonment issues into her secret pet, a spider that she names Sting. But Sting is no ordinary arachnid. No spoilers, since we learn this at the very start of the film, but Sting is extraterrestrial in origin, with a planet-sized appetite to match. Sting’s diet of choice is the liquefied internal organs of any unfortunate mammal or bird that gets within web distance. And he prefers his food fresh, so for added yuck factor his victims tend to be conscious as they are drained like picnic-sized drinks cartons.

Efficiently contained and creepy, the picture loses a little of its gruesome potency when it ventures into heartfelt family relationship territory.

• In UK and Irish cinemas now