Superdeep, Russia's Attempt at The Thing

I get it...you stand with The Ukraine, even though you can't find it on the map.  Well today, let us stand with Russia in this Shudder original film "Superdeep."  This 2020 film, directed by Arseny Syuhin, may be the best attempt to recreate much of the horror from "John Carpenter's The Thing."  So go ahead...boycott Shudder, grab an AK-47, head to Kiev, and make sure you do TikTok videos from the front line...me?  I'll stand with Russia here and watch a great horror film.

The Soviets (this takes place in the 1980s) have a borehole near Murmansk that goes almost 40,000 feet down into the Earth.  What is down there?  Well, that's the problem.  The scientific team down there has either apparently gone crazy or been killed.  A disease has spread.  Thus Russia's best epidemiologist, Anya (Milena Radulovic), a Russian babe, has been called in.  She's haunted still by failing to develop a vaccine for a disease that killed her man after she used human test subjects.  Unlike our Dr. Fauci, Anya has a conscience.  She gets to the site at the same time as a suicidal scientist runs out of the facility.  The guy has a grenade and tries to destroy the new team that has arrived but dies in the process.  His remains indicate he was no longer human...you'll see.

Now Anya and the team meet head scientist, Grigoriev (Vadim Demchog).  He is helpful at first, but as he brings the newbies down into the borehole, tries to kill them.  Now he is on the loose.  When the team arrives at the deep underground lab, they meet some scientists, including the pretty Olga (Darya Shagal) and Kira (Albina Chaykina).  Anya need not worry, these two babes won't remain pretty for long.  Anya soon realizes the disease that played havoc with the borehole personnel is actually a parasite that infested the crew and...well, you'll see...it'll be ghastly.  She also realizes that whatever is growing and consuming down in those depths can never be allowed to make it to the surface.  Even worse, the thing does everything it can to get up to the surface.  Sound familiar.

You'll see the horrific results of this parasite when it infests Russian babes and other scientists.  It'll be icky and menacing.  Will Anya risk being infected and engage in catfights with Olga and Kira?  Will the weird lifeform from the deep manage to make it to the surface?  If the CDC and Dr. Fauci were in the borehole, would this parasite have gone global in record time?  So sign your anti-Russia pledges, put up that milquetoast blue and yellow flag, adopt a Ukrainian refugee (who is actually from Africa or the middle east), and we won't let anyone know you watched "Superdeep."