Synopsis

While working on a low-budget horror movie in Moscow, mute makeup artist Billy Hughes is accidentally locked inside the studio overnight. She witnesses two men filming an actual murder disguised as pornography, but the killers erase the evidence and convince the police that Billy misunderstood what she saw. Trapped between criminal pursuers and skeptical authorities, Billy fights to survive and expose the truth.

Factoids & Trivia

• The film began as a much smaller project intended to be set in Chicago. Moscow was chosen after the production learned that Russian studios, labor, and locations were considerably cheaper.

• Production stretched over several years. Alec Guinness filmed his brief appearance in Hamburg in 1985, while the main Russian shoot took place much later, from December 1994 through February 1995.

• Guinness agreed to appear without payment after meeting the filmmaker by chance. He requested that his involvement remain secret, which led to his end-credit billing as "Mystery Guest Star."

• The Russian shoot faced serious logistical problems. Film equipment flown into Moscow was impounded by customs officials, and filming was also delayed by a diphtheria outbreak and the 1993 Russian constitutional crisis.

• The movie was a British-German-Russian co-production and premiered at the 1995 Sundance Film Festival.

• Billy's inability to speak is used as a suspense device rather than as a simple character trait. Her communication depends on tapping, signing, writing, and a computer-generated voice, making ordinary calls for help unusually difficult.

• The film's central setting is a working movie studio, allowing its horror to play with the contrast between fake violence created for the camera and violence that is real.