The Superdeep (2021)

Streaming Services: Shudder
Movie Name/Year: The Superdeep (2021)
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Length: 113 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Production/Distribution: Shaw Organisation, Volga, Lumix Media
Director: Arseny Syuhin
Writer: Samuel Stewart Hunter, Arseny Syuhin
Actors: Milena Radulovic, Sergey Ivanyuk, Nikolay Kovbas, Vadim Demchog, Kirill Kovbas, Nikita Dyuvbanov, Viktor Nizovoy, Albina Chaykina, Darya Shagal, Andrey Trushin
 
Blurb from IMDb: A small research team went down below the surface to find out what secret the world's deepest borehole was hiding. What they have found turned out to be the greatest threat in history. And the future of humanity is in their hands.

Selina’s Point of View:
I adore films featuring all manner of undead. Zombies, as oversaturated as they are, remain my favorite. The Superdeep delves into this kind of thing and still, even to me, manages to come up short.
 
The fact that I couldn’t like it is almost a feat all on its own. You can see where this film took inspiration from games like The Last of Us (2013) and movies like Resident Evil (2002) – which we all know was different than the game, I’m specifically talking about the flick – Alien (1979), and Slither (2006). If it didn’t pull inspiration from those sources, then it accidentally stumbled into their areas.
 
I’m a fan of all the projects that this one reminded me of. Still, I remained completely uninvested.
 

The script felt forced in just about every scene (though it’s an adaptation from Russian, so it might be better in its original language). The soundtrack included very little actual music and was just a bunch of obnoxious noises cobbled together. The acting was over-dramatized to an extreme, except when it was devoid of any emotion at all.
 
If I had to choose one good thing about it, it would be the design of patient zero’s infection. It was decent. If the entire movie was born from the same attention to detail and quality, this would be a much different review.
 
There’s just no part of me that can recommend The Superdeep. Everything is subjective, though. If you want to see for yourself, it releases June 17th on Shudder.
 

Cat’s Point of View:
I always have a feeling of excited anticipation when we are granted access to a screener for a movie. The Superdeep was no exception. This time, however, there was only a slight bit of trepidation involved because this film is Russian in origin. You never know if you’re going to end up with something dubbed or with subtitles. Thankfully, The Superdeep was dubbed in English for 99% of the production.
 
There was a slight concern in the first few minutes that this might just be a black and white movie shot in first-person, and I cringed on the inside. Thankfully, that passed quickly and the rest of The Superdeep was in a more palatable format. I’m not knocking black and white films by any means. I just prefer color features when at all possible. It was the found-footage-like first-person scenario that would have been more off-putting. I digress…

 
The Superdeep was an interesting sci-fi horror tale steeped in a tension-filled score and plenty of gore and body horror disgustingness. The effects were realistic and believable, and super gross. The production got a lot of bang for their practical effects bucks here. The CGI effects were blended in rather well, also, and weren’t over-the-top. I appreciated the use of sound to build the tension without a lot of direct shots of the big-bad. It made the situation far scarier in the moment.
 
I’m curious whether or not director Arseny Syuhin (Lockout, Stalingrad, The Crossing) will continue to work on projects that lean towards mainstream, or if his future projects will be geared more to his homeland. I’d be interested in seeing more of his work in the future. The Superdeep is Syuhin’s feature-length directorial debut. He has worked on another title that had international release lately with Iron Mask (2019), though as the action unit director.
 
If I had to summarize The Superdeep for someone, I’d have to say that it can be compared to throwing Doom (2005), Resident Evil (2002), and The Thing (1982) into a blender and setting the story in Soviet Russia. It made for a very interesting premise that I didn’t regret watching when the credits began to roll. If you’ve got a subscription to Shuddder, The Superdeep is a decent choice to stream for a night in.

 
Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – None
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – 4.8/10 
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 2/5
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 3/5
 
Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: R
 
Movie Trailer: