Sputnik Review

Most movies try too hard, feeling the need to over-complicate even the slightest detail in a well-worn idea. I've watched a lot of dreck (and reviewed some of it), but why is that? Maybe there are no more new ideas in Hollywood, or at least, no new "bankable" ideas. Perhaps that's why we turn to Russia for an eagerly competent science-fiction horror film "Sputnik," which comes to US audiences only through subtitles. This is a no-frills treat packed with government conspiracy, bloodshed, science, fiction, and yes, a nasty little creature that comes from space.

In 1983, after a day without contact, a Russian spacecraft lands back to Earth, with one passenger dead, one alive, and one new, sleeping inside the living. What is it? What does it want? How did it get inside him? Can we remove it? The answers to those questions, the last one in particular, are tasked to Tatyana (Oksana Akinshina), a disgraced doctor who's career is saved by Colonel Semiradov (Fyodor Bondarchuk), after her risky practices threatened a patient's life in an offscreen event. If you're going to ask what the Military wants with an alien, then you have not seen a lot of movies.

This creatures lives inside and outside its host, though only for about an hour a night, and the cosmonaut remains under heavy guard as scientists work to study the parasite. (Or is it symbiote?) Expect the obligatory scenes where someone "wants to take a closer look" and the even more obligatory consequences.

I wish I could say the narrative is something best kept a secret, so that you, the viewer, could be surprised, but the only way to be shocked would be to have never watched 1979's "Alien," any of its sequels, or any film it inspired (or inspired it). But part of the fun of these pictures is seeing all the neat new twists play out; everyone knows, or at least thinks they know, what's going to happen, who's gonna die, and how it all ends. You sit in suspense, waiting for that part you just know is coming, all the while sorta hoping to be wrong. "Sputnik" offers everything you want in an creature feature, all thrills and trimmed of most unnecessary fat.

Most unique here isn't its characters, plot or even monster- it's its setting. The industrial Russian facilities casts a damp coldness to every shot, one that to American's feels almost as alien as the alien itself; everything looks like Earth, but something's not quite right. A detached emptiness fills you with dread- this is a place where you know bad stuff has happened and is going to happen. And bad stuff does happen, and then happens again, and again.

The lack of an English dub ends up being an unintended brilliant move, a cost-saving measure that gives the production a sort of pseudo-documentary feel; your eyes dart quickly over the subtitles and then scramble back onto the screen, wishing not to miss chance to get lost in the bleak craftsmanship. For all its gloominess, there is somewhat of a happy ending, but with the world in its current state, I'm not sure we need something this gloomy to begin with.