CINEMA: Andrew Worsdale
A SCARY opening which turns into a joke sets the tone for Anthony Wallers debut Mute Witness the most fun youll have had in a cinema for a long while. Some critics have dubbed it the slasher film Alfred Hitchcock never made, and the movie shares the grand masters feeling for suspense and macabre humour.
It begins with a movie-within-a-movie scene, on the set of an American horror film being shot on the cheap in Moscow. When the blonde bimbo dies in the most over-the-top manner, the crew breaks out in gales of laughter and the director says: This is not Chekhov, okay? … Youre just another victim. Youre stabbed you die. And so begins Wallers rollercoaster ride into mayhem, with twist after twist in an elaborate hide-and-seek horror movie that is consistently filled with jokes.
The film, which really was shot on the cheap in Russia (the first day of shooting had to be delayed while Boris Yeltsins boys bombed Parliament), focuses on a mute make-up girl who witnesses the filming of a snuff movie one night when she returns to the studio. What follows involves body parts, both real and fake, the Russian mafia (in their most threatening and credible appearance to date as moviedoms favourite villains) and plenty of genre trickery.
With one of Russias most famous movie villains, Oleg Jankowskij, in the central role, the movie plays neat tricks with its locale. For example, none of the Russian dialogue is subtitled, a humorous subversive device that undermines and thrills the viewer, piling on the suspense.
Beautifully shot by fellow Munich Film School graduate Egon Werdin, the movie was made on an incredibly low budget. But with over 1 800 set-ups and 2 000 cuts, it keeps one exhilarated.
Waller uses every trick in the book and, while not everything is a surprise, the films bravura sense of cinema is something to relish. Its no surprise, then, that Waller has been picked to direct the sequel to John Landiss similarly exuberant An American Werewolf in London. This is going to be set in Paris, and will certainly be something to look forward to.
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