Survivor of a Spaceship Incident Returns on Earth With a Dangerous Creature Hiding Inside His Body

Welcome back to Movie Recaps. Today  I will show you a Russian horror and sci-fi film from 2020, called Sputnik. Spoilers ahead!

Watch out and take care. It's 1983 and "Orbita-4" is in orbit around Earth,  carrying two cosmonauts. One of them is singing and is kidding with the other - Kostya that he'll  report him to mission control for not doing the same.

They chit chat about what they'll do when  they get home, while mission control checks up on them. Kostya opens the latch hocks and they  undock. The other sings again as they are getting into the landing position, but something hits the  spaceship.

They gain control back of the ship, but the singing cosmonaut sees something in the window  moving outside of the ship and toward the hatch. Later, a parachute is seen in the sky over Soviet  Kazakhstan. A man on a horse approaches the fallen spaceship.

He lights a flashlight and finds one  of the cosmonauts dead on the side of the ship. The other one is crawling out of the  ship, barely finding his footing, as the man approaches him. When  the cosmonaut raises his head, blood is coming out of his mouth  and his eyes are completely black.

A woman is seen entering a conference room in  the Research Institute for Brain AMS in Moscow. The room is being prepared for a hearing. The  board members come in and the hearing begins.

Tatyana is being investigated about an  injury she possibly inflicted on a patient. Her colleagues from the board don't doubt her  methods, but still think that a certain level of negligence should be considered. She disagrees,  saying that the she did what needed to be done on a misdiagnosed patient.

A man is observing the  hearing and later approaches Tatyana in the lobby. He introduces himself as Colonel Semiradov  and asks for her consulting help on a patient, saying that he also runs a form of research  institute. She is a little apprehensive, but becomes interested as he tells her  that he's also involved in neuropsychiatry.

Semiradov tells her that he will take her to see  the patient, but if she doesn't want to work the case, he'll bring her back. On the way there in a  helicopter, they talk about the patient. She asks for his medical files, but instead he gives her an  oral report.

He tells her that the patient is one of the cosmonauts from Orbita-4 and explains that  certain things were left out of the media. Kostya appears to be suffering from episodic amnesia, not  remembering the incident that happened in space, before the ship landed. She asks if she should  sign a non-disclosure agreement, considering that the cosmonaut, a Soviet national hero, might have  lost his mind.

They arrive in Kazakhstan and take a car to the a Scientific Research institute. Once  there, Semiradov informs her that she can move freely in 90% of the institute and after she gets  her clearance she could get into the restricted area as well. They enter an elevator which takes  them to an observational room.

Meanwhile, Kostya is being hypnotized by a psychiatrist. Tatyana  observes the session from the other side of the glass. The psychiatrist wants to get information  out of the cosmonaut, but he just kids with him.

The doctor gets angry, saying he can't  help him if he doesn't let him help. The man coughs and the doctor gets unnerved.  Kostya tells him that he can't be hypnotized, since only the most mentally strong can be sent to  space.

Doctor Rigel walks into the other side of the room, greeted by Semiradov who tells Tatyana  that he's the research director of the institute. The cosmonaut bangs on the window and asks  what has happened to his colleague. Tatyana asks what Colonel Semiradov needs and he tells  her that he needs her opinion on his condition.

She walks on the other side of the window  and introduces herself. Kostya is happy for the change from Rigel. She offers him some tea,  which he takes and drinks.

Tatyana observes all of his movements and tells him why she's there,  then asks him about the toy in the corner. He replies that it's his, something having to do  with cosmonaut traditions. She asks him what happened during the mission, but he's weary of  doing it again.

Since she hasn't read the files, he still tells her that the mission went  without a glitch until the landing procedure, after which he can't remember anything, part  from waking up in the Institute. He realizes that she can't help him get out of there, so when  she says that she can at least help him, Kostya gives her the name and number of his mother asking  Tatyana to inform her that he's alive and well. She takes the tea and before she leaves, says  that it was a pleasure to meet him.

When she hands the teacup to Rigel it burns his hands and  she explains to the Colonel that Kostya has PTSD and that his sensory receptors or peripheral  nervous system might be damaged. After giving her evaluation, she asks to leave. Semiradov  tells her that she can leave in the morning.

The soldier taking her to her room tells her  that the Colonel would need to authorize her departure tomorrow. As they walk, they see a few  people working under supervision. To her question about them, the soldier replies that they are  prisoners, brought in to do hard labor.

He takes her to her room and says she's the only one in the  building. Tatyana gets into her room and unpacks, then wants to make an outside call, only to be  told that no one can make those from the base, except Semiradov. That night, she's taking a bath  and a giant scar is seen on her back.

She takes some pills for the pain and goes to bed, but since  she can't sleep she goes out for a run. Suddenly, she runs into one of the prisoners. Once back  in her room, there's a knock on the door.

It's Semiradov. He takes her back to the observation  room and asks her when was the last time she ate. When she replies, he checks his watch and gives  the order to start.

A glass window comes down in the cosmonauts chambers and more soldiers come in,  securing the door. Tatyana and the others watch the security cameras as something starts happening  to Kostya's body. Suddenly, he falls from the bed and something is coming out of his mouth.

The  blob transforms into an alien creature. Tatyana is shocked. Semiradov asks her if she wants  to take a closer look.

She goes to the glass window and waits for a sight of the creature.  It appears. She observes it and it observes her.

Tatyana reaches her hand out to it, but it jumps  at the window. She goes out of the room shocked and terrified. Semiradov runs to her and tells her  the creature is non-terrestrial.

Tatyana wants to know if Kostya is aware that it lives inside  of him, but that doesn't seem to be the case. The Colonel wants her to find a way to separate  the host from the parasite or she could leave and sign the non-disclosure agreement. She asks why  he chose her for the task and he answers that it is because she is willing to take risks.

In his  mind that would save their national hero. Tatyana asks for the videotapes of the creature, Kostya's  testimony and all the notes they have. She will need to have two sessions a day with him, one hour  each.

The Colonel is content to have her stay. Tatyana goes through the documents and finds out  that the cosmonaut was placed in a rehabilitation center first, but the creature emerged the first  night and killed a medical technician. Then they brought him to the facility and started trying to  separate the man from the creature, though nothing has worked thus far.

Without the creature inside  of him, the cosmonaut's vital signs drop, but with the creature inside, he has amazing capabilities  of regeneration. When the creature is incubating, it takes up very little space inside of Kostya's  body. And outside of the cosmonaut it can reach up to a meter and a half.

Exiting his body,  it releases a toxin that knocks out Kostya and once it exits, it can stay out for an hour  and 40 to 50 minutes. It's exiting schedule has remained consistent every night. Tatyana pegs  the question, is it a parasite or a symbiote?

Kostya is seen exercising in a gym,  under the supervision of a doctor. He tells him not to exert himself too much.  The cosmonaut says he feels generally good, but that he just has a small tickle in his throat.

Later, Tatyana is looking through the footage of the creature and is taking down some numbers.  Rigel comes in and she asks for the whereabouts of Kostya's son, but he doesn't really answer.  Then, she asks what the creature feeds on and he tells her that it feeds on the same things  that Kostya eats.

She tries to establish a rapport with the doctor, but he dismisses her  attempts and tells her to talk to the Colonel. She calls the orphanage where Kostya's son  is staying from Colonel Semiradov's office. A paralyzed child is seen getting up and going to  get something, but a nurse catches it in the act and stops it, scolding it.

The next day, Tatyana  comes into Kostya's room for their session. She tells him that the people who brought her to the  Institute think that he has lost his mind and that he's killed his co-pilot. Rigel and the Colonel  are listening from the other side and the doctor isn't happy about her questions, while the Colonel  is confused.

The cosmonaut is confused that they would think that about him and if that's the only  reason why he's being held behind armored glass. She asks him who he really is. He's answer  - a hero.

Tatyana antagonizes him over the heroism of spaceflight and quickly  moves on to ask him about his son, telling him his abandoned him. He's offended  and asks her to leave the session. On the other side of the window, she tells them to test his  endocrine system, thinking that if they understand his hormone levels under stress, they'll be  able to figure out what the creature eats.

Next, she asks the Colonel to move him into the  civilian area during the day, so that they can get a more realistic clinical picture. Semiradov  abides her request and gives Kostya a normal room. Tatyana comes into his room and apologizes,  explaining why she did what she did in the session.

He tells her that he didn't know about  the boy, that he was informed about his existence when his mother died, one week before the mission.  Before she leaves, he asks her one more thing - to tell him why he's really being kept there.  However, Tatyana can't answer that question.

That night, she goes into the observation room to  see the alien creature. She tries tapping on the window to get it's attention, but then crouches  down and waits for it to appear. When it does, she lies down and it mimics her behavior.

Tatyana  disturbs the cosmonauts toy when she stands up and she notices the way the creature looks at it, so  she asks to go inside the room. The Colonel allows it, so she is put in a protective suit. She enters  the room and puts the toy down for the creature.

It immediately goes to it and coils around  it. Tatyana wants to touch the creature, but she slips and she falls. The creature grabs  her and drags her in, so the general flashes it with lights and Tatyana is taken away from the  room.

The Colonel then goes to face the creature. That night, Tatyana is in her room and the Colonel  comes inside uninvited. She proceeds to explain to him what she learned from the incident with  the toy.

She thinks that the creature and the cosmonaut share the same consciousness because of  the way it reacted to the toy that means a lot to Kostya. Furthermore, she thinks that every night  it spends more time outside of Kostya's body and eventually it won't need him anymore. Tatyana  asks the Colonel to take them to Moscow, but he refuses, knowing that won't be possible because  of how much they don't know about the creature.

Later, she goes to talk to Rigel and notices  something wrong with one of the videotapes. He says it's a glitch, but she hits him with  the question about the difference in the hormone levels of the cosmonaut between day and night.  She thinks they feed the creature something that they're not sharing with her.

Rigel tells  her to leave while she still can. But she thinks he wants a Nobel Prize and offers to  help him get it without her own accolades. Tatyana asks for the missing information to be  given to her without the Colonel's knowledge.

Rigel hides her in his vehicle and sneaks her into  the restricted part of the facility. Meanwhile, Kostya is being given sedatives, knocked out and  then wheeled back into the observational room. Rigel parks the car inside the facility  and gives Tatyana night goggles, telling her the battery lasts for only ten minutes.

He  leaves the car and a giant cage can be seen, with a few soldiers taking out a prisoner  from a truck and putting him inside of it. They turn the lights out and they all put on night  goggles. The creature has left Kostya's body and it's been guided to the cage.

Tatyana sees it  from the car, as it goes toward the prisoner, then jumps it and rips his head off. She makes a sound  and one of the soldiers hears her inside the car. Rigel diverts the soldiers attention and he  doesn't find her.

Later, he drives her back at the dormitory and gives her some water, as  well as some additional information. He found out that the creature feeds on cortisol, the fear  hormone that's released in the brain. But he tells her that feeding it humans was the Colonel's idea. 

She leaves the car telling him that he's a coward. The next day, Tatyana asks Kostya to  go for a run with her. As they run, she tells him about the creature and that they  need help from the government to separate them, but he runs back.

He tells her to find out  if she's being followed and meet him in his block at 1 AM. That night, they give him his  pills, but when they leave he throws them up. He crushes up the pills and puts them in his tea. 

Then, he leaves his room and chats up the nurse that's guarding him, asking her to come inside  and watch a movie with him. She falls asleep on his shoulder. Kostya takes apart the TV and takes  the magnet out.

He meets with Tatyana. Then, he places the magnet on the camera which will create  an error. The guard sees that there's something wrong and comes down to check the camera, but  when he doesn't find anything he leaves and they can freely pass in front of it.

Kostya and Tatyana  go to the freezer room where he sees the bodies. There are scans of his body there also. She  asks him if he can feel the creature inside.

He says that he is the creature and that he can  remember everything in detail of what it has seen. Kostya tells her that if Semiradov knew he would  never let him go. His co-pilot is there too, but he's alive.

He begs Tatyana to help him,  by enduring two more weeks in the Institute, until a review board from Moscow arrives and he  can be set free. She asks him how he could endure the creature killing people for two more weeks.  But, he asks her what she would've done in his stead.

Kill herself? Tatyana answers yes. Kostya  doesn't want to be guilty for feeding the creature people or to die there after all that he's  been through.

He wants to live and get his son. Meanwhile in the orphanage, the child goes to  get a package and the nurse finds it again. It scratches her and she calls it an invalid.

Back at the Institute, Tatyana is returning to her room as two soldiers corner her and take her to  the offices of the Colonel. They argue about the morals of the situation with the creature, with  him firmly believing that he's doing the right thing in the name of peace. Tatyana doesn't think  that human sacrifice is needed, but the Colonel tells her what kind of prisoners the men are.

He  suggests they go to the feeding together so that she could see it up close. At the feeding ground,  two prisoners are brought inside the cage and the creature is let in. It keeps getting closer to the  men and Tatyana begs the Colonel to stop, saying she'll find another way to feed it.

Then she  asks to be let inside the cage with the creature. She starts singing the same song she heard Kostya  sing before and the creature calms. Rigel and the Colonel watch her do it, as the doctor exclaims  that the creature has adapted, that it can hear now.

While Tatyana is singing to the creature,  Kostya is seen reacting in his room as well, not unconscious anymore. One of the prisoners undoes  his restraints and the creature hears him move. It attacks him and kills him.

After the feeding,  the Colonel asks Tatyana if Kostya can control the creature. She tells him that he can't do it yet.  With her help, Semiradov thinks, that eventually they will learn how to control the creature. 

He asks her to put their differences aside. The next day, Tatyana is working in the  room with the co-pilot, when Rigel comes in. She starts talking to him in Latin, telling him  to help her and Kostya escape.

He doesn't want to, but she tells him to man up. Later, Rigel brings  her the sedatives she needed, but asks her not to tell anyone he helped her. She walks over  to the guard and sedates him.

Tatyana asks the doctor to help one more time. He comes with her  to get Kostya. When she goes inside his room, she finds him on the floor.

She tells him  that the Colonel will do anything to keep the creature there. Moreover, she's figured  out a way to get the creature out of him, by injecting him with a combination of  drugs that will mimic a specific disease. He doesn't want to do it, afraid that the creature  has adapted and that it will survive out of him.

Furthermore, he thinks the creature has  saved his life and tells her to run, because it chose him for a reason. It was his  punishment for abandoning his son. She tells him his son's name and age, so he changes his mind and  goes with her.

The doctor tells them that there's a car outside and gives her the keys. Tatyana asks  him to come with them, but he's decided to stay. The two of them leave and Rigel goes to  the Colonel's office to make a call to the authorities and give them information about  the Institute.

Simultaneously, another soldier finds the sedated guard. They check the footage  and see that Tatyana and Kostya are running. The Colonel orders a response team to be sent,  to bring back Kostya alive and terminate Tatyana.

The response team finds and stops them. Back at  the office, Rigel is still on the phone, when someone tries to come inside. He ends the call  the moment the Colonel gets inside the office.

The Colonel kills him. Meanwhile, Tatyana  and Kostya are hiding from the soldiers, when he asks for the syringe with the drugs. She  throws it at him and he shoots the drugs in his heart.

The creature leaves his body and faces off  with the soldiers. They shoot at the creature, but it starts killing them. Tatyana drags  Kostya to a car and they escape the compound.

Eventually, the Colonel goes to face the creature.  He drops a smoke bomb and starts shooting at it. They're both hurt, but the Colonel shoots at  it again.

At the same time, Kostya coughs up blood in the car. Tatyana realizes that he won't  survive without the creature. He says that they can still escape, but she drags him out of the  car.

The Colonel reaches them and asks her if she changed her mind. She says that they have  become fully symbiotic and can't be separated, as the soldiers take the creature out of the  trunk. The Colonel drops the gun she was holding and the soldiers open the creature's enclosure. 

The Colonel incapacitates her, but Kostya manages to control the creature and it kills the soldiers.  He goes after the Colonel next and kills him too. Tatyana goes to check if Kostya is still alive  as the creature crawls to them.

It doesn't kill her and gets back into Kostya's body. She tells  him that she can separate them if she can get him to Moscow. Suddenly, Kostya kills himself, as the  authorities Rigel called for arrive at the scene.

Tatyana is going to Rostov, where  the orphanage with Kostya's son is. In a flashback, the kid comes back for the  package. The nurse finally acknowledges its persistence and gives it the package.

It  opens it to find sneakers inside. Tatyana walks inside the orphanage and tells the guard at  reception that she's there to adopt Kostya's son. Meanwhile, the child is putting on the sneakers  and stands up from its wheelchair.

The nurse says that everything will be alright and the child  turns and tells her that its name is Tatyana. In the present, she's waiting outside for the boy.  He comes out and she greets him.

They embrace.