This is the film I would have been running out to see in the kinoteatr and reviewing here (and in my blog) - if things had been as normal.
Anyway,
SPUTNIK* has been released, a 16+certitifate science -fiction/horror hybrid from the Russian director Egor Abramenko (it seems to be a longer version of a short that he brought out three years ago).
Just from the trailer - English subs! -and the premise it all looks very
Quatermass Experiment-ish, both in scenario and general ambience. It seems to be set in Soviet times and features a returned cosmonaut who has been infected by an extraterrestrial presence.
Of course, that whole theme of infection has gained a new resonance since the film's conception....
Unlike a lot of Russian horrors, this one doesn't look as though it will tip over into extravagant fantasy - but like a lot of Russian scary flicks it also looks quite po-faced as though it takes itself quite seriously (which can often be a plus in this genre).
It stars Oksana Akinshina - who was actually in the spi-fi
The Bourne Supremacy some 16 years back, and the film director-cum-actor Fedor Bondarchuk who directed the frothier
Attraction 1 and 2 blockbusters, which also featured an alien incusion theme.
It made the news on Russian TV that this film is now going to (or now has been) be premiered live online somehow...but, you know what, that won't do for me. I'm going to wait until the time I can get to see it on the big silver screen - second row from the front, bottle in hand - as is my wont. That's how to catch a premier!
* The word `sputnik` just means satellite in Russian - but also can carry connotations of `fellow traveller`. I suspect the film's title is playing on this double meaning.