Tail Sting

Infobox Film
name = Tail Sting


caption =
director = Paul Wynne
producer = Vicky Pike
Morris Ruskin
Paul Wynne
writer = Timothy Griffin
Peter Soby Jr.
starring = Laura Putney
Robert Merrill
Shirly Brener
Gulshan Grover
Tara Price
Jean Carol
Elizabeth Perry
music =
cinematography = Angel Colmenares
editing = Paul Wynne
distributor =
released =
runtime = 97 min.
country = United States
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0290884

"Tail Sting" is a 2001 film whose plot consists of genetically enhanced giant scorpions wreaking havoc on board an airplane.

Plot

The film opens in Australia where a hijack attempt is made on a van leaving a genetic engineering institute in New South Wales. The would be hijackers are thwarted by Security Guard Fred (Joe Boony) who gets the cargo safely to an airport in Melbourne.

A cancelled flight at the airport forces an unlikely mix of characters to board a chartered flight to Los Angeles rather than wait for a plane the following day. This includes a girls Karate team, a businessman desperate not to miss a meeting in the US (Dave McCracken), and a mix of token characters including a snooty rich woman, Gunter the goth, Omar the woefully inept African-American, a gay flight attendant, and a group of scientists accompanied by Security Guard Fred.

Shortly into the flight it is revealed that one of the scientists, Scott Milhouse (Ray Davis), planned the attempt to hijack the van back in Australia, which contained genetically modified scorpions intended to be used to develop new drugs to fight against AIDS and cancer. The scorpions excessive size is blamed on the fact they were cloned and engineered using DNA from "loads of things", including prehistoric scorpions. In this respect the plot mirrors "" which features a prehistoric ancestor of the Great White Shark that is many times larger than its modern day descendant. He has recognied their material worth, though, and intends to sell specimens to an unknown third party. As Fred foiled the hijack attempt, Dr Milhouse is left to steal some of the specimens himself. He attempts to move some of the specimens into a coffin in the plane's cargo hold when Fred interrupts. A fight ensues and Dr Milhouse accidentally stabs Fred in the head with a ski pole. Despite being momentarily fazed by his own descent into a murderer, Dr Milhouse rapidly recovers and moves the specimens before balancing the coffin on the edge of a container and leaving the hold.

Soon thereafter the coffin tumbles from its perch and the scorpions are released. For scientifically dubious reasons, possibly to do with unrefined oxygen, the scorpions grow to immense proportions and rapidly kill several members of the crew and passengers. The pilot, Captain Jack Russel, begins to realise something is amiss when he finds his navigator dead in the cargo hold, and his fears are confirmed when a huge scorpion drops into the cockpit and fails to sting him to death.

The remaining passengers and Captain Jack band together and set about getting themselves killed amid moving character development. Gunter, it turns out, is in fact called Joe and hails from New Jersey - explaining his horrendous German accent. He makes up for his feelings of inadequacy around girls by projecting this false and potentially more exciting persona, though it doesn't seem to work as he manages to bore Courtney the Karate kid earlier in the film. Shortly after this moving revelation Joe is killed by the scorpions.

At some point amidst the carnage Dr Milhouse reveals his true colours and pulls out the gun he stole from Fred after the Security Guard's ski pole related demise. Dr Milhouse's mental state rapidly deteriorates and he accidentally shoots the head scientist who the opens the door. Several key characters and all but one of the scorpions are sucked out of the plane by the rapid depressurisation. Dr Milhouse survives the event, though, and forces would-be American electricians Yaffi and Sudan (who he affectionately refers to as Arafat and Saddam) to fix the landing gear while Captain Jack lands the plane.

Before Dr Milhouse's crazy plans come to fruition he is stung by the queen scorpion and vanishes for a good ten minutes. Worse, Captain Jack loses his eyes to the scorpion, prompting his love interest Dr Ryan to set out on a mission to kill the queen while Courtney (the karate girl) acts as Captain Jack's eyes in the cockpit.

Dr Ryan corners the queen at the plane's minibar, but before she can defibrilate it to death her ex-boyfriend Dr Milhouse reappears and points out that he's been stung so many times that he's practically immune to the scorpion's venom. He looks pretty bumpy, though. Dr Ryan ironically pushes Dr Milhouse into the grip of the queen, then zaps the scorpion moments before the landing gear is repaired and the plane lands.

Captain Jack and Dr Ryan leave the plane together having fallen in love during the high-pressure situation, the fate of Yaffi and Sudan is never detailed, while Courtney finds Omar hiding in an overhead storage bin and they leave together. Everything seems to be in order, apart from Jack's career destroying injury, but then a normal-sized scorpion runs across the runway and horror possibly ensues.

A subplot towards the start of the film revolves around Yaffi and his brother Sudan sneaking on the plane to carry out the plan that their father died trying to carry out eleven years previous. Their constant praise of Allah and sinister discussions about the plan were perhaps intended as a light jab at terrorism in the days before the attacks on the World Trade Center, since it is revealed that the pair are in fact electricians hoping to sneak into the US without a work permit.

ee also

*"Snakes on a Plane"

External links

*imdb title|id=0290884|title=Tail Sting
*rotten-tomatoes|id=tail_sting|title=Tail Sting