Going down into the dark at any depth is enough to freak a lot of people out since the thought of being confined in a subterranean space is terrifying. But being in the depths with the knowledge that there’s something wrong in the dark where one is about to enter is even worse. When Anna, an epidemiologist, is summoned to check out a strange occurrence far below the frozen surface that leads to a research facility far beneath the earth, she has no idea what she’s going to find, but danger appears to precede the trip downward as it’s made clear that if the wrong code is entered into the elevator, the trip will be a short one. Even before this, during the arrival of the evacuation team, a scientist is seen approaching the helicopter that has brought the team, detonating a grenade after being shot several times. If nothing else spells trouble in this movie, that would be a pretty good indication that things are not well in this movie. Upon heading down to the research station, however, the man in charge of the elevator depressurizes the elevator, forcing everyone else to pass out as he takes the key and disappears into the facility shortly after.
This movie might become a little confusing unless one watches closely since it does have a few moving parts that don’t always make sense when it comes to how they connect to each other, but paying attention does help. What doesn’t help the audience however is the fact that while this movie is a horror and it does make it clear through the use of various images that are shown throughout the first hour, it still doesn’t push the envelope nearly as far as it needs to. Some might want to argue against this fact by stating that the movie does build things up in a way that might be described as a slow burn with an eventual payoff, but the unfortunate fact is that the suspense doesn’t warrant the final reveal.
The thing about this movie is that one can follow it with a fair amount of ease, but even then it feels as though too much is left out for this type of a story. The lack of development is enough to make it feel a little disjointed, and the characters don’t feel as though they’ve been given the kind of attention that would make the audience care that much. When Anna discovers a woman that has a series of knobby growths upon her back, it then becomes apparent that something is terribly wrong with this picture and that whatever was uncovered by the research team is something that can’t be fought or even survived in the conventional manner that other subterranean creatures could be. When the woman with the growths is later found half-melted into the floor, the pulsing growth that looks like a spore suddenly breaks open, leaving no doubt that the noxious spew that comes forth is bound to be deadly to anything biological. From there the story moves along in the same halting manner, making it somewhat clear that Anna and the survivors need to reach the elevator to reach the surface and possible safety.
The growths are revealed to be weak against the cold, but when the group finds a grisly tableau of several human beings that appear to have been grafted together by the same growths that were present on the woman’s body, it becomes apparent that things are insanely serious and that escape might have just become less of a possibility. But when the thing starts moving, revealing that it is very much alive and can absorb anyone it touches, those that reach the elevator do so just in the nick of time. But, as one should be able to guess, Anna and her fellow survivor are not alone, as another of her party is grafted to the floor after being melted by the spores that clung to him. When the other unaffected survivor attempts to kill Anna so that he can escape upon reaching the surface, the spore-laden individual stabs and kills the man. As Anna reaches the surface, she’s met by other individuals that have been called in to see what’s going on.
This movie has a lot of familiar elements to it, but what it doesn’t really have is the allure that many subterranean movies tend to have. The idea is sound enough and the creature that becomes the huge threat is rather creepy, but overall, the danger of an unspecified airborne contaminant that can affect human beings in such a manner could have been done in a way that would be a little more convincing. Superdeep wasn’t a horrible movie, but there was room for improvement, which is putting it nicely.
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