Decades ago in the Soviet Union, a magician performs his new trick--a photo camera that predicts the future. The guy is somewhat reluctant but is pushed by his military handler. The show involves the assistant girl and two volunteers, one who operates the camera, another who places some colored vases in whatever order he wants. A photo is taken before the volunteer moves the vases and the instant photo that the camera spits out predicts the correct order. The camera operator is a scientist and a skeptic. He still doesn't believe it. He takes a picture of the triumphant magician. The picture shows him dead on the floor, and sure enough, he drops dead right there and then.
In the present, 7 kids meet to drive to a house somewhere. It's winter in Russia at night and while taking a selfie they crash into a deer somewhere remote. The car is wrecked. They decide to split up. One guy will look for help, two stay inside the car, the rest walk in direction of where they think the house should be since they think they are near it. There's no phone signal of course. This group does arrive at a house, not sure if it's the house they meant to reach. One girl finds a room with a bunch of pictures stuck on the wall. They are all pictures of dead animals, including the very deer on the hood of their car! Another guys finds the camera from the intro. He takes a picture of another guy, who then leaves with a girl. The guy falls head in first right into a bear trap. And indeed, the picture of him shows just that. Then the girl who left with the bear trap guy accidentally takes a picture of herself. Minutes later she's dead. And so it goes with the rest of the kids, one by one.
Another girl finds a movie tape which shows the scientist from the intro and the magician's assistant doing experiments with the camera on mice. But someone kills them. All along we've been led to believe there is someone else in the house, presumable the owner. While the camera at first appears as just a witness/predictor of death, little by little it turns into an instrument of death as the kids start turning on each other and using the camera to bring about death. At the end there are two girls left, and they will meet the owner of the house. There are a couple of revelations and a cool unusual ending for a horror movie.
Deadly Still is a well-made Russian horror movie. It's overdubbed which is always a little awkward even though here it's better than most times. The character's are a little goofy, but this movie doesn't focus that much on them, it's pretty straightforward and focused on advancing the story. It's a relatively shorter movie, too. I liked the story and the surprises. You really don't know what to expect and where it will go. Some deaths are pretty good, others not so much. The sights of snowy Russian forests are pretty amazing. The movie could have used nudity, a bit more gore and some more violence and overall just more content to make it longer. Overall, it's an above average original horror thriller that manages to surprise.
