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Sputnik

Tyler Harlow

Starring: Oksana Akinshina, Pyotr Fyodorov, Anton Vasilev, Fedor Bondarchuk

Director: Egor Abramenko

In 1983 as the Cold War comes to a close, cosmonaut Konstantin Veshnyakov (Pyotr Fyodorov) returns home from a mission in space as the lone survivor. Something immediately seems off and he is imprisoned at a military facility under the supervision of Colonel Semiradov (Fedor Bondarchuk) and scientist Yan Rigel (Anton Vasilev). Semiradov recruits Doctor Tatyana Klimova (Oksana Akinshina) to assess Konstantin, who only remembers finishing his mission and preparing to return home. It is soon discovered an organism is living inside Konstantin, having developed a symbiotic relationship with his body and will leave his body every night. As Tatyana attempts to discover whether they can separate Konstantin from the organism safely, she soon discovers there is more going on and that the Colonel hasn't told her everything.


In what could have been a bad Alien rip off, this Russian sci fi horror film is instead an effective and tense creature feature that marks a fantastic directorial debut. The atmosphere in this film is incredible, with cold yet gorgeous cinematography and is accentuated by one of the better scores I've heard in quite some time.


You may think that I ruined the plot by mentioning the creature in my summary, but it is shown in full detail about twenty minutes in. Not only is this a bold choice that helped the story, but the design on the creature is unique and terrifying. And to top it off, the special effects are fantastic! While there are a of couple gruesome moments early in the film, the monster really gets its chance to shine in the third act, which is tense and genuinely scary. One of the reasons why creature features fail is the creature just feels like an afterthought, there to attack our protagonists. Abramenko goes out of his way to help the creature feel like a character and I can't remember seeing a horror film do this, unless it's directed by Guillermo del Toro. It goes a long way and gives the film more emotional heft than it should.


With this being a Russian film, I have not seen other films with the cast but they are fantastic across the board. Akinshina and Fyodorov especially have fantastic chemistry and thankfully the movie skips an unnecessary romance between the two.


The is a breath of fresh air to the genre and I encourage fans to check this one out.


Grade: A


Sputnik is available on VOD.

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