Mute Witness (1995)

Mute Witness, is a 1994 thriller/horror shot in Moscow, Russia written, directed and produced by Anthony Waller. Although made in 1994, it was not released in the USA until the fall of 1995 (with the UK not seeing it till the following year).

Known for having Alec Guinness in cameo as a Mystery Guest Star along with a mostly European cast.

Originally set in Chicago, Waller changed the location when told that Moscow would provide much cheaper sets/labor.

Director Anthony Waller filmed Alec Guinness scenes nine years before the rest of the film from an earlier draft of the screenplay.

Guinness gave his performance in one morning before catching a plane.

When Waller needed an additional scene, he used the film from earlier and reversed it.

Billy (Marina Zudina), an FX make up artist who does not have the physical ability to speak, is in Moscow working on a low budget slasher film directed by her sister's boyfriend Andy (Evan Richards). On one particular night Billy returns to the set to fetch a piece of equipment for the next day's shoot when she is accidentally locked in the studio. Being unable to speak but having the ability to communicate with her sister Karen (Fay Ripley), Billy makes several telephone calls but is interrupted when she discovers a small film crew working after hours to shoot a cheap porno film. Watching unseen Billy is amused until the performed sex becomes sadistic. When a masked actor pulls out a knife and stabs the actress (Olga Tolstetskaya), Billy reacts and is discovered. She flees pursued by the homicidal film crew.

Billy narrowly escapes and manages to tell her story to her sister and the Police, however the snuff film crew manages to convince the authorities that the onscreen 'murder' was a cinematic special effect. The events however bring forward Larsen (Oleg Yankovsky), an undercover detective who is tracking the activities of the covert film crew and their connection to a shadowy criminal mastermind called The Reaper. The Reaper (Alec Guinness) is a financier of an international underground snuff ring. He tells the criminal film crew that Billy is a witness and must be eliminated thus motivating the snuff film director, his thug assistant and a host of subsidiary criminals to retrieve a missing computer disc from her and dispatch her. As more and more factions get involved in killing and saving Billy the action become wild and fantastic and hard to discern what's real from movie magic.