Mute Witness

REVIEW
A mute American F/X artist working on a low-budget slasher film in Russia witnesses her coworkers seemingly making an after-hours snuff film and is accidentally locked in the studio with them. She is then stalked through the hallways in a brilliantly conceived, tension-laden extended chase sequence which is unrelenting in its suspense. First-time director Waller, in an obvious though unacknowledged homage, infuses the film with the nail-biting suspense and horrific violence of De Palma and Argento to create a highly stylized and visceral thriller. The film's second half, however, becomes needlessly convoluted as an attempt to add humor puts it starkly at odds with the constant terror which comes before it.