Sputnik review – smart Soviet-era sci-fi chiller

The alien is the least of the horrors in Egor Abramenko's mostly gripping suspense, set in a dour 80s army facility with an unwanted visitor

We sent two into space. Three came back." At first, no one notices the extraterrestrial stowaway when a Soviet rocket lands back on Earth; the creature is tucked out of sight, getting comfy in the oesophagus of one of the two astronauts on board. But it makes itself known at a medical facility, slithering out of the man's mouth, expanding, before chomping on the brains of a nurse. Russian director Egor Abramenko makes his feature debut with this mostly gripping movie, a supremely confident 1980s-set sci-fi refrigerated with elements of a Soviet-era thriller and scares straight out of Alien. Its female hero has the mental toughness of Ripley, too.

She is controversial psychiatrist Tatyana (Oksana Akinshina), who is under investigation for treating a teenage patient with anxiety by holding his head under water. It worked," she shrugs. While the authorities investigate, Tatyana is called to attend a remote research centre in Kazakhstan where the astronaut (Pyotr Fyodorov) is being held by the army. The poor guy is completely oblivious to the parasitic invader that wakes up at night when he goes to sleep. His only symptom is a tickly throat. Tatyana's job is to psychoanalyse the alien, to understand its predatory urge to kill. She is Clarice Starling to the alien's Hannibal Lecter - with less banter.