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:

Awake (2021)

Streaming Services: Netflix
Movie Name/Year: Awake (2021)
Genre: Action, Adventure, Drama
Length: 96 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Production/Distribution: Entertainment One, Netflix, Paul Schiff Productions
Director: Mark Raso
Writer:  Gregory Poirier, Joseph Raso, Mark Raso
Actors: Gina Rodriguez, Shamier Anderson, Dan Beirne, Gil Bellows, Frances Fisher, Ariana Greenblatt, Lucius Hoyos
 
Blurb from IMDb: After a devastating global event wipes out all electronics and eliminated people's ability to sleep, a former soldier may have found a solution with her daughter.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
Awake wasn’t quite as original as I’d hoped, but I still really enjoyed it.
 
There were tropes. There always are, though. What impressed me about the utilization of them is that Awake did manage to subvert some.
 
I mean, when I see an apocalypse movie and a character is shown to have insulin-dependent diabetes – or some other illness that they need constant access to medication for – I immediately know that’s going to come into play. They’re going to lose their insulin, or it’ll be stolen, or they’ll just run out and it’ll be a whole thing. Although they showed a character taking insulin early on in the film, they didn’t take the road that trope normally goes.
 
I know that seems small – but I have NEVER seen an apocalypse movie do that. Not ever. I’ve seen everything from insulin, to inhalers, to anti-psychotics get lost. It’s such a recurring side-plot, that I go into every movie like this assuming it will be a thing. I’m usually right.
 
Not all of the tropes were subverted, but a few did go the way of the not-missing-insulin. Which was nice.
 

It did end the way I thought it would – but there was so much suspense leading up to it, that I didn’t mind. The whole flick felt incredibly fast-paced. About 7-minutes in, the catalyst for the apocalypse happened and there were no more chances to take a breath.
 
I didn’t feel time move.
 
Gina Rodriguez (Annihilation, Kajillionaire, Carmen Sandiego) made me feel every moment of her character’s journey to protect her kids. Ariana Greenblatt (Scoob!, Love and Monsters, In the Heights) also did a stunning job. I believed her. There were moments that she played her character so well, that it heightened my immersion – despite my not having any issues with that to begin with. She’s young, but she’s already got a decent amount of experience. If she keeps going, she’ll be a future A-lister.
 
The reviews are showing that a lot of people disagree with me about Awake. I think they’re wrong, and I think Awake has the chance to become a cult film. There are going to be people like me who see mostly good in it. It’s just a matter of how many.
 
Time will tell.
 

Cat’s Point of View:
I’ve been looking forward to Awake since I saw the trailer. It felt like this would be a fresh take for the disaster-flick genre.
 
In recent years, there have been TV shows and films featuring loss of electricity in the world – however nothing quite with this particular flavor for the apocalypse. It was fresh and intriguing. I went in with so many questions.
 
I wish I could say that I got some answers, if not the ones I was hoping for. There’s a mild explanation that left me fairly dissatisfied on that front – it felt like a few throw-away lines. I get it that the delivery was given while the character was generally delirious, but you’d think there’d be more substance to it.
 
Aside from that, the rest of Awake had my attention and I was far from any danger of zoning out.
 

Gina Rodriguez was impressive, as usual, in her role as a young mother with a troubled past now fighting for her children’s future. I enjoyed seeing this new facet to her range -- portraying someone desperately trying not to unravel. 

We should definitely keep our eyes on young Ariana Greenblatt. She’s come a long way from the precocious younger sister in Disney’s Stuck in the Middle (2016-2018), and I have a feeling her career is only going up from here.
 
Aside from a few great moments here and there, I’m afraid there weren’t a lot of elements in Awake to set it apart from the majority of the productions that focus on the crumbling of society – whether from disasters or illness.
 
In any case, I’d still give Awake a recommendation as a good warm-up movie to kick the summer season off. It might not blow your socks off, but it’s not a bad flick.
 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 38%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 33%
Metascore – 36/100
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – 5.1/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 4.5/5
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 3/5
 
Movie Trailer: