SUPERDEEP is a new Shudder horror thriller with a plot that might sound familiar. Also, when you watch this movie on Shudder, it will continue to feel familiar. Along the lines of The Thing but without much intensity or depth (ironically!).
While the movie is from Russia, the language spoken is almost entirely English. Which is extremely weird, to say the least. But hey, I have no doubt it’s to appeal to a larger international audience. Realism and quality be damned! Admittedly, I probably had way too high hopes for this movie after the brilliant Russian sci-fi horror movie Sputnik which was actually in Russian.
Look, there isn’t much I like about Superdeep, but I will acknowledge that the visuals and special effects work well for the most part. As soon as we’re many kilometers under Earth’s surface (in the superdeep, as it were), the effects down there look great.
The story is just a hybrid of other movies you’ve seen before and mostly The Thing.
And then there’s the writing. “You saved my life!” one person says to another, who really did not save anyone’s life. They just endangered both themselves and everyone else and then tried (clumsily) to manage the situation. Yeah, it’s not impressive. But hey, the acting by Milena Radulovic as the main protagonist, Anya, is actually quite impressive, so there’s that.
The storyline in Superdeep plays out in the 1980s and one of the only things you’ll hear in Russian is a New Year’s speech by Gorbatjov playing in the background. And again, having just this one thing in Russian while everyone else is speaking broken English is a huge breaking point for me.
Whenever this strange language choice is made, the illusion is completely broken. Just as it was the case with Brian de Palma’s godawful Domino which played out in Denmark at first. Complete with Danish actors, who were speaking English to one another. All while Danish extras in the background were speaking Danish. I mean, how is that supposed to be realistic.
If you want to get away with this (having a different language spoken than what would be natural), then at least try to explain it in some way. Especially when it’s obvious that much of the cast has been dubbed – probably because they’re Russian actors and not fluent in English. This creates the unfortunate situation of looking like a spoof on bad dubbing.
Superdeep is written and directed by Arseny Syuhin. According to IMDb, this is his feature film debut after making just over a handful of short films. From his visual style, I believe there is definite potential, but the content of this movie just doesn’t cut it for me.
Samuel Stewart Hunter has done the “English adaption” but I cannot for the life of me understand why. I mean, not to say anything bad about Samuel Stewart Hunter because he has worked on the English adaption (or dubbing) of several Netflix series. Including The Trial (org. title Il processor) and the Russian To the Lake (org. title Epidemiya). But why make it in English as the default?!
When we first began playing the Shudder screener of Superdeep we thought it was dubbed and figured it had to be a mistake. Shudder doesn’t do dubbing as a default, which is something I love about them because they pick up many international movies. Then we realized this Russian movie was simply in English.
We tried to give it our best shot, but it never worked for us. Maybe if you’re used to watching dubbed movies it won’t be such a bad experience. Dubbing is just never as good as the original because the intensity and passion do not come across. And yes, I do recognize this is the only way to watch foreign-language movies for some people.
For most though, it’s a choice that I (like Academy Award winner Bong Joon-ho) do not understand. That anyone would choose to purposely make a movie that feels like it’s dubbed, when it isn’t actually, is something I will never understand. But hey, have at it if you enjoy supernatural survival horror movies. The visuals are at least quite impressive.
Superdeep is out on Shudder from June 17, 2021.
