Sting of Death



Karen and her friends visit her father at his marine research estate in the Florida Everglades to do a little summer PAR-TAY-ING! WHOO! But when everyone gets there the party atmosphere hits a snag when some of her friends turn out to be Grade-A ass-hats and start tormenting Egon, her father’s deformed assistant. Egon runs off and the party resumes… But not for long. Because unbeknownst to everyone else, Egon has been conducting his own series of experiments with the Portuguese Man o’ War, creating a full-grown Man-Jellyfish hybrid…. Which he shall now use to extract his revenge…



After watching Dark August I ended up doing a bit of a deep dive on other low-budget regional horror and that…well, that took a lot longer than I ever planned. But it got me to wondering what kind of weirdness they made about or in my home state. And by that I mean ones that were either shot or set specifically in Florida, not ones that were just made here and could have taken place anywhere else. So for instance, something  like Jeepers Creepers wouldn’t count, even though many of the driving sequences were shot around 20 minutes from where I grew up, because I don’t think they ever mention the movie taking place in Florida. In fact, I think they imply that that movie takes place somewhere in the mid-west. I should probably go back and watch it again at some point….

ANYWAY, I found quite a few films that take place down here in the swamp-lands, and lucky for me they all seem to be pretty obscure. So strap in while I finish off perhaps the most blistering month of summer with some films from one of the hottest, stickiest states in the ole US of A.


Just because it’s hot doesn’t mean you should be wearing those shorts! Gah!

Not having heard about any of these Florida films before, I didn’t know what to expect from Sting of Death, but the summary suggested the existence of a large human-jellyfish man, so needless to say, I was intrigued. And… well, let’s just say it delivered.

But before I get to that, you should first know that, being a film of the 60s, this movie is very heavily influenced by the “beach party” genre that was prevalent during that decade. If you don’t know what that is, feel free to look it up. But generally most of them included a simple plot focused on teens or college students and at least one scene of “lets all plant our feet on the ground and shake our hips back and forth a-rhythmically”, usually accompanied by an original song or two. Now, normally these kinds of movies were comedies, and this film is a horror movie, so most of these dancing num-nuts end up dead by the end, but it fits most of the other criteria, so it’s pretty clear what they were aiming for. Or maybe they were mocking it, since so many of them die so early. Either way, just know that there is a weird musical number shoehorned in here and you’re going to see a bunch of gyrating hips and gratuitous butt shots (like, a looooooot of butt shots) in this film that feel horribly out of place. But then again, considering the weirdness in the rest of the movie, it mostly just feels like an extra dollop of whipped cream on an already bizarre sundae.



On a side note, the music in question, appropriately titled “Do the Jellyfish”, was written and recorded by none other than songwriting hall of fame-er, Neil Sedaka, a man who has sold millions of records, and written over 500 songs (both for himself and others), including several #1 hits. A lot of people probably aren’t all that familiar with him now (though he did do some online concerts during Covid…), but I was still surprised to see his name listed here. I also wasn’t really sure how these guys managed to get such a big name to work on their tiny little indie film, but apparently Sedaka hit a bit of a slump in the mid 60’s before his career boomed again in the 70s. So they must have just caught him at a good time. Not good enough to “appear” in the movie though, like the film credits suggest, but still good enough to write and sing a song for them. Still seemed weird to see his name there though…. And the song wasn’t all that good either. But…uh…at least I got to hear it in its entirety? And now you can too!

The song may not be good, but it’s still leagues better than the cinematography on display here. Woof.

You know what also isn’t very good in this movie? Just about everything else!

The pacing? Awful. Expect a lot of people talking. Or boat rides. Or diving. Or people sitting around talking and waiting to dive or go on a boat ride. Oh, and of course that song and number spiel that lasts close to 5 minutes. That’s in there too. But mostly there’s a lot of downtime. For a movie that advertises a Jellyfish Man, there is actually very little Jellyfish Man. Though there is an air-boat chase towards the end that’s… Well, it’s not all that thrilling either, really. But for a movie like this it’s still the most exciting thing in the film and might as well be the equivalent of an F1 race.



The acting? It’s… Well, actually most of it isn’t that bad for a low budget film such as this, but it’s not very good either. It’s clear they probably used a lot of local talent to draw from and well, passable may be the best term used to describe it. So some people suck, but most of them are fine, and you shouldn’t expect any standouts or to be impressed by anyone.



The worst part though? THE EFFECTS! Because good god are they terrible. Just… OMG, so ridiculous. Our Jellyfish Man consists of – I kid you not – a dude in a scuba outfit (complete with flippers!), covered in random pieces of glued-on vegetation and electrical cords, and a semi-clear garbage bag strapped over his head. Like, that’s it. THAT’S the monster for this film. And of course you don’t see the whole thing right away – because why spoil a good laugh right off the bat – you only see his feet. Hell, even after you know who the monster is (Hint: you always know who the monster is), they bizarrely insist on only showing you shots of its feet. But you can still clearly tell from that that this is just a guy in a scuba suit. I mean, they didn’t even bother giving him socks or figuring out a way to cover his heels most of the time. You can still clearly see them frequently sticking out between the leggings and the flippers in several scenes. So for a while I was sure that this was going to be some kind of Scooby Doo “well we THOUGHT it was a monster, but it was just some douche trying to terrorize us while wearing a crappy costume” movies. But no, that’s…that rubber nonsense is supposed to be part of a genuine, honest-to-god monster you’re looking at. It is patently ridiculous.




Please, nobody all laugh at once.

But I guess the poor film really had NO budget to speak of, because even the tiny baby jellyfish they show you in the movie are little more than plastic baggies filled with… Well, some red and blue colorful something or other shoved inside them. I don’t know what the hell it is. Probably some kind of garbage. The greatest part about them though is that the film wants you to somehow think they’re menacing while they just float there in the water. Because, fun fact: jellyfish have no means of self propulsion. They rely on the wind or current to move them. None of which are really prevalent in the stagnant waters of a swamp. So the victims of these things literally have to swim into them in order to get hurt. Meaning you get to watch an entire scene with a bunch of dumb, slightly drunk college students flailing about in the water while they’re killed by a few dozen lunch baggies filled with trash. It’s a hoot.


I really hope the filmmakers cleaned up all this trash after the scene was over.

Really, the only good part about the movie is that it does have a lot of nice scenery on display, since it was filmed on location in both the Everglades and Rainbow Springs, which was the same place they filmed parts of Creature from the Black Lagoon. So there’s really quite a lot of nice location shots to look at. And though I might tease about the boat rides, they do showcase how green and lush the Everglades can be, as opposed to the sticky, murky swampyness a lot of people think of it as.

Although, as someone who lives here, I still had to laugh at how some things were portrayed. Because the filmmakers are having these guys dive into these reed-filled Everglades, and suddenly when they’re underwater everything is wide open and the water is crystal clear and pfffft you can tell those are from the springs, because that’s not what those waters are going to  look like down there in the swamp. Like, parts of it are nice, but it ain’t that nice. And it certainly isn’t a place where you’d want to do any diving, either. Cause there isn’t that much room to move, what with all the missing vegetation that should be down there.

Oh, and you know what else is missing? Alligators. You’ve got a movie set in Florida, that is inexplicably focused on jellyfish (though the Portuguese Man o’ War isn’t actually a jellyfish…nor would they likely be that deep into fresh water…) and yet there’s not a single alligator to be seen. And I assure you, they’re there. Or at least they should be there, because if there’s any freestanding body of water down here, odds are you should just assume there’s at least one gator in it. Probably more. Even if it’s just a water retention area, because those prehistoric bastards are all over the damn place. I’ve had some run out in front of my car before. And in the Everglades, they should be everywhere. EVERYWHERE. Along with their frinds, the snakes. Coral, Cottonmouths, Rattlers, they all live down here. Yet you don’t see a single cranky reptile in the entire film. Just criminally dull people and one dude waddling around with a Hefty bag over his head.


And whatever the hell is going on here.

So, um, just in case you haven’t picked up on it yet, this is kinda a weird-ass movie. And also kinda bad. Like, “they clearly dubbed over English speakers” levels of bad. But it’s also one of those films that’s not necessarily weird or bad in a way that makes you hate it. Because most of it is just too silly to hate. I mean, come on, they threw trash in the water and wanted you to think it was threatening. You can’t hate that. You can only laugh at it. So, no, Sting of Death is not a good movie. It’s very stupid. But it’s so stupid that it’s also highly entertaining. So while I can’t say it’s good, I can’t say it wasn’t fun to watch either. So if you don’t take your horror movies too seriously, then go ahead and give this one a whirl. You’ll probably get a few laughs out of it. But if you’re a stickler who demands QUALITY in their films, then you’d best steer clear of ole’ Hefty Man Head over here.

Sting of Death is available on a variety of streaming services.

Sting of Death is also available on DVD, along with its sister film Death Curse of Tartu.

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