Film Review

Superdeep (2020) • Shudder

A Russian doctor ventures miles beneath the earth’s surface to investigate mysterious deaths at a secret Soviet research facility.

One of the best horror movies dealing with monsters beneath the surface is Neil Marshall’s The Descent (2005), but Superdeep has more in common with another recent Russian film: Egor Abramenko’s Sputnik (2020). In both, a young woman doctor in Soviet-era Russia is assigned to deal with an unknown entity infecting humans; in both, she discovers the real plan is to harness this entity as a weapon; and in both, there are metaphors for the Soviet Union’s corruption and decay, perhaps more obviously in Superdeep with its sinister mold.

However, where Sputnik’s creature from space was a means to explore human and political questions, Superdeep is essentially an alien movie in which the alien is technically terrestrial (just as many films set at the bottom of the ocean are), and lead actor Milena Radulovic essentially plays the Ripley from Aliens (1986) role as Anya.