Forgotten 90s horror comedy: Mute Witness (1994)

After last week's brief detour to celebrate John Carpenter's birthday we're back on track with Mute Witness, a deliciously clever thriller written and directed by Anthony Waller (An American Werewolf in Paris). The mid 90s saw string of “self-aware” horror films coming predominately (though not exclusively) from the lens of Wes Craven and the pen of Kevin Williamson. Scream, New Nightmare, Urban Legend, Bride of Chucky all played around with the conventions of slasher horror films and the mechanics of movie making. One of the least mentioned or remembered is Mute Witness, a low budget film that got swept under the carpet in favour of other films with bigger stars.

Mute Witness sees Marina Zudina play Billy, an American make up artist working on a horror film being made on the cheap in Russia. Apart from the director and her sister all of the crew are native Russians with little grasp of English. However this isn't much of a problem for Billy as she is mute anyway. One night, after getting accidentally locked in the studio and she stumbles on a tiny crew working in the basement making an illicit porno. However the situation turns deadly when the scene turns into a snuff movie. When the crew of burly Russians notice Billy they pursue her. Billy escapes the studio but who will believe her story and more importantly how can she tell it when she can't speak!

To tell more of the story would ruin it but rest assured there's many more twists and turns. Apparently Waller's original plan was to set the film in 1930s Chicago but budget restraints forced him to relocate to both modern day Russia. I've got to say the location really helps the atmosphere of the film. Much like An American Werewolf in Paris, the film plays on the inherent creepiness of being lost in the backstreets of a foreign city where you don't speak the language.

I've got to commend Waller on such a fantastic premise too. A witness who can't speak being pursued by group of criminals trying to silence her. It's the kind of thing Alfred Hitchcock would have loved to play around with. Considering some of the subject matter you'd be mistaken for thinking that the film revels in bad taste but actually Waller handles everything very tastefully and wittily. The first signpost is the opening scene in which we see a woman murdered in a bizarre fashion before panning across to see a group of men watching, then slowly revealing we are watching the making of slasher movie.

Maria Zudina makes a good female protagonist, having to use her face to do almost all of the acting. In slasher movies, the female protagonist is always referred to as the 'final girl' and Billy makes for a completely unique variation. One very surprising cameo is made by Alec Guinness, who plays the head of a criminal empire. Waller apparently filmed his cameo in 1985 (ten years before the film was made) in Germany in the hour before Guinness had to catch a plane. Look closely at his second scene and you'll notice that it's just the first scene again with the footage reversed!

The only thing I can say that's bad about the film is that the second half doesn't quite match the greatest of the first half. Hanging the film solely on Billy's muteness means the film has to go to ever increasingly ridiculous situations to keep the thrills going. But there are spots of ingeniousness still to be found such as Billy flashing her pervy peeping tom neighbour to get his attention to help her.

In summary, Mute Witness is a cracking little thriller; witty, scary and exciting in equal measures. It's a shame Waller didn't make more films like this. In terms of recommendations, I'd suggest that anyone who enjoyed the Scream movies or maybe the similar but non-horror F/X: Murder by Illusion would like this film too.

Underrated 90s horror comedy: An American Werewolf in Paris (1997)

Following on from my last post about Freaked I thought it might be a nice to review another film written (at least in its original draft form) by the same writers - Tom Stern and Tim Burns. An American Werewolf in Paris is the very belated sequel to John Landis' landmark werewolf film An American Werewolf in London. Upon release the film was almost universally panned as being an inferior film but taken on its own terms, divorced from the earlier film, it's actually pretty good. Well, in my opinion anyway.

The film sees Tom Everett Scott play Andy, one of three American backpackers on a tour of Europe. The three guys have been doing daredevil stunts in every city they stop at and Andy plans to make Paris the biggest one yet by sneaking on the Eiffel Tower at night and bungee jumping off. However as he is about to make his attempt he sees Seraphine (Julie Delpy) try to commit suicide and ends up saving her life. As the two are drawn together Andy discovers that Seraphine is actually a werewolf and pretty soon he gets bitten too. Can they stop Seraphine psychotic ex-boyfriend Claude from unleashing his army of werewolves?

As I said reaction at the time was along the lines of “Why the hell are they cashing in on making a belated sequel to a classic movie that no one wants?” Little did we all know that one year later John Landis would do the exact same thing to his own Blues Brothers movie with the god awful Blues Brothers 2000. As far as the original American Werewolf in London goes, I'm not a massive fan. It's an okay movie but it feels very disjointed and doesn't really have much of an ending. Don't get me wrong the special effects work by Rick Baker is awesome but the story and acting are only so-so.

As I said, despite the similarities in plot - American backpacker falls in love with nurse, gets turned into a werewolf - you really need to take An American Werewolf in Paris on its own. It's far more of a straight forward comedy where the original film was very much long stretches of horror punctuated by comic overtones. For the most part I think the film succeeds, it's very much an over-the-top farce with werewolves. Don't be expecting the bleak ending of the original either, I don't think it ruins anything to say that the ending is very much a happy one.

Tom Everett Scott does a great job in the lead. He's very reminiscent of an 80s Tom Hanks (which is likely why he got cast in That Thing You Do). Julie Delpy looks a little lost by comparison but gamely gets topless in one scene. Best of all of them is Vince Vieluf who plays Brad, one of Andy's friends, who gets turned into a horrifically ripped up ghost corpse (like Jack in London). There's some brilliant visual gags where only Andy can see and talk to him but everyone else sees him talking to thin air. In one part Andy points at Brad and says “You're dead, they pulled you out of the river” but everyone around him sees him pointing at a cooked trout.

I'm not denying there's some bad points in the film. The CGI, which drew a heavy amount of criticism at the time, is quite ropey in some scenes but I don't think it ruins the film as a whole. It would have been nice for the effects to be practical models but with all the werewolf on werewolf action it would have probably looked even worse. Pick any one of The Howling sequels to see what happens when you try and do practical effects on a budget.

The director Anthony Waller, who also co-wrote the script, keeps everything moving at a great pace. The whole film saturated in that yellow-y glow that all European cities have. It's disappointing that he didn't take advantage of more of the city's locations to give it more of a French flavour. Waller stages some nice thrilling sequences though, such as a rave club that turns into a werewolf attack (not unlike Blade) and a creepy bit with a paraplegic werewolf. There's also a very witty bit where one of Andy's friends who escapes the evil werewolves having been crucified by dragging this huge crucifix on his shoulders.

In the end, I think this is one film that got a bit of unfair press on release that is actually pretty enjoyable. I'll be looking at Anthony Waller's earlier film Mute Witness next, which again shows his penchant for witty horror comedies.