Superdeep review – spore-squirting Soviet horror ends up fusty

Like Chernobyl with mould, this Soviet-era-set Russian horror-sci-fi follows experts racing against the clock to put the lid on a disaster inside a government facility: here it’s a top secret research station seven miles underground, the source of an apocalyptic outbreak of fungus. As with Chernobyl, the movie features strong 80s moustaches, lab coats, and characters frequently prefixing “comrade” to each other’s names. Exasperatingly, the missing ingredient is a well-developed storyline; nothing in the muddled script hangs together. I had the feeling I’d walked into the cinema five minutes late and missed some critical all-explaining first scene.

What Superdeep does have going for it is a cracking hero: a brilliant young epidemiologist sent in by military top brass to gather samples of whatever is happening underground. She is Anna (Milena Radulović), a character who shares DNA with Jodie Foster in The Silence of the Lambs with a little of Ripley from the Alien movies. Rather than snap into bad-ass butt-kicker at the first sign of trouble, Anna takes on the forces of fungus with her brains. In fact, during the scary bits she looks terrified, deathly pale, breathing shallowly. In a film of laughably bad dialogue – I kept my eye firmly on her face (oh, and her Soviet-chic yellow roll-neck).

Worryingly, on the way down to the research unit, one of the grizzled miners being evacuated growls: “It’s hell down there.” What Anna finds – without getting spoilery – is a spore-squirting Alien-inspired parasitical nightmare. To begin, there are a couple of genuinely repulsive horror moments, but things get silly very quickly. The film finishes in retro disaster-movie mode: emergency red lights flashing, alarms blaring – anyone who’s still alive crawling about in the dark and dust. Irritatingly the script engineers a way for Anna to do this in her vest and knickers. What a let-down.

• Superdeep is released on 17 June on Shudder.