The Superdeep: Movie Review
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I tried to keep the review as spoiler-free as possible!
The Movie
The Superdeep is a 2020 Russian horror movie, which is based in and named after the Kola Superdeep Borehole. Directed by Arseny Syuhin, it stars Milena Radulovic, Sergey Ivanyuk, Nikolay Kovbas, and Vadim Demchog, among others.
The film is set in 1984 and the main character Anna Fedorova, a Russian epidemiologist, is contacted by the government to join a military team to investigate the strange sounds heard within the hole and the disappearance of twenty people. She is told that the hole is actually a site of a secret research facility and the director hid reports of some kind of contagion. Upon landing at the Superdeep site, their helicopter is approached by an erratically behaving man. He detonates a grenade, damaging the helicopter. When she inspects the body, Anna notices a faint red glow in the skin and the body decays rapidly. After that, the team descends the 5220 meters down to the site.
The Review
The Superdeep is a film rich with the themes of the hubris of man, organisms trapped deep underground and revealed when you dig too deep, and man's greed for money. The presentation of the fungus that infects human bodies was really well-done, when it was revealed onscreen, I was shocked - that's how cool and realistic it looked. As the fungus progressed in its horrifying evolution, I got some serious The Thing vibes.
However, the movie really suffered from the stiff acting. A lot of times, the actors just had no real expressions on their faces regardless of the situation they were in or the conversation they were having. It also uses the predictable protagonist is good and wants to save the world vs. a corporate entity wishes to retrieve the dangerous thing and make money off it/weaponize it.
Lastly, the movie also suffered from many nonsensical moments and lack of logic. Like when a character goes out into an environment previously described as super deadly, is shown to sustain major injuries, then pretty much walks it off and is unaffected. Or an elevator that whips up and down those 5220 meters and the people inside don't suffer any kind pressurization issues, despite how deep they are going and how fast.
Also, there are quite a few times when the main character, who is supposed to be an expert in all things infectious, does a lot of dumb stuff. Like enter a room without protective gear. I found this really irritating, to say the least.
5/10
x PLM