As a UK script consultant I’m pretty pleased to be writing about two really good horror films today – Saint Maud and Sputnik are both great additions to the genre that I love.
Sputnik is a Russian subtitled sci-fi / horror hybrid that has just rocked up on Netflix without much fanfare – but I started hearing a lot of word of mouth online in the last week or so.
It’s a very decent film, a body horror, contained and constrained for the most part in a Russian facility – it has hints of Alien, not least because of its smart and very capable heroine played by Oksana Akinshina (that’s easy for you to say!)
Director Egor Abramenko (also easy for you to say!) Does a great job too, the atmosphere is tense throughout, and the film does well with limited resources.
There’s a slightly confusing subplot which gains importance towards the end. I’ll have to catch it again, to make more sense of it.
I won’t rattle on about the plot, but the film is worth checking out. And it does more than the similar recent Hollywood sci-fi /horror ‘Life’ (2017), although both films would make a great double bill (if you can’t find your Alien DVD).
Matthew Cooper has been a scriptwriter for hire, UK Script editor and UK script consultant for over 20 years. He’s written for most of the UK soaps, including writing award-winning episodes of Emmerdale, EastEnders, Hollyoaks and Family Affairs and has been BAFTA shortlisted and Royal Television Society nominated as a script writer. His UK script coverage service, Script reading service and script development service are highly sought after.
You can find some of his broadcast credits on the IMDb.
His directorial debut, the rubber reality horror thriller Markham was released in 2020. You can find out more about Matthew’s work as a director here.