AI-generated video with Soviet aesthetics is unsettling the internet

The Soviet pavor that AI has brought back to the screen

A video with the Soviet aesthetics of the 1950s and 60s, reportedly generated with artificial intelligence, has become an object of fascination and revulsion in equal measure. The piece recreates a scientific experiment with spores that turn human beings into giant mutants, contained in suits that curb their runaway growth. The result, according to those who have watched it, is an unclassifiable product: neither conventional pavor cinema nor a historical document, but a kind of hybrid between the imagery of the Eastern bloc and today's algorithmic output. The debate is on: is it a tribute, a parody, or yet another sign that AI can manufacture nightmares just as easily as it manufactures ads?

Soviet aesthetics as a trademark

The first thing that catches the eye is the packaging. The recreation of postwar USSR — with its industrial imagery, muted tones and propaganda-poster solemnity — works as a powerful visual hook. Some compare it to Soviet science fiction cinema, the kind that produced cult works like Kin-dza-dza or Ironia sud'by, and which now serves as a template for an experiment that, according to its most enthusiastic fans, is «cool» precisely because of that: because of the whiff of Chernobyl and stalker it gives off.

The problem is that AI does not distinguish between tribute and caricature. The video, which according to some comments «shows» that it was made with artificial intelligence, produces a strange feeling: that of watching a film that never existed, but could have existed. That ambiguity is perhaps its greatest achievement and its greatest flaw.

The experiment that never was

The plot of the video — if you can call it that — revolves around an experiment with spores that transform their subjects into mutants of outlandish proportions. The detail of the suit that contains them to keep them from growing further has triggered comparisons with the Resident Evil universe, where tyrants are super-soldiers created through a bicho. The difference is that here there is no bicho but spores, and the result is not a biological weapon but a kind of Stakhanovite worker ideal for the Norilsk mines, according to one ironic comment. The irony is obvious: the Soviet dream of productivity taken to the extreme of mutation.

The debate over whether the video is a real scientific experiment or fiction has been settled by the very nature of the material: it is a digital creation. But that has not stopped some from fantasizing about the possibility of a secret program of Soviet supermen. AI, after all, feeds on our antiestéticars and our fantasies.

AI as a nightmare factory

The deeper debate is another one: can artificial intelligence generate a cultural product that competes with conventional pavor cinema? The answer that emerges from the comments is ambiguous. Some argue that AI «can't hold a candle to the atrocities of those SOBs», referring to the real experiments carried out in the Soviet Union. Others, however, consider the video «a piece of crap» precisely because of its algorithmic origin.

The truth is that the video has achieved something many conventional productions fail to do: unsettle. The combination of Soviet aesthetics, spore experiments and giant mutants is disturbing enough that some have felt a chill. And that, after all, is what pavor is supposed to do.

The Soviet legacy in pop culture

The video has also served to reclaim Soviet science fiction cinema, a genre that produced works as unclassifiable as Kin-dza-dza or Ironia sud'by, ili s liogkim parom. The comparison is not gratuitous: both films share with the video that mix of solemnity and absurdity that characterizes much of the cultural output of the Eastern bloc. The difference is that the Soviet films had a budget, a crew and an intention; the video has an algorithm.

Nostalgia for Soviet aesthetics, on the other hand, is nothing new. For years now, the imagery of the USSR — its posters, its architecture, its technology — has become a goldmine for advertising and design. The video joins that trend, though with a sinister twist: instead of idealizing the past, it turns it into a nightmare.

The future of AI-generated pavor

The question that remains in the air is whether this kind of product will become commonplace. Technology is advancing fast and video generation models are increasingly sophisticated. If a video like this one — with its imperfections and its obvious artificial origin — is already capable of generating unease, what will happen when AI can create images indistinguishable from reality?

For now, the video has done its job: it has got people talking. And it has done so in a context where artificial intelligence is in everyone's crosshairs. The line between tribute and cultural appropriation, between art and garbage, is increasingly blurred. AI is not here to replace creators, but it is here to question their limits.

With this in hand, we are likely to see more experiments of this kind. Soviet aesthetics, with its burden of authoritarianism and failed utopia, is material too juicy to let slip away. The question is whether the result will be pavor or simply misunderstood nostalgia. Only time will tell.