On the surface, 1995’s Mute Witness appears to offer the final movie role for Alec Guinness. However, in a weird twist, the actor shot his small part almost a decade earlier and that footage simply got edited into this project.

Weird trivia aside, does Witness offer anything memorable? Not really, as it delivers little more than genre clichés.

Billy Hughes (Marina Zudina) works as the makeup artist on an American horror flick being shot in Russia. After hours, she ends up accidentally locked into the studio.

As Billy tries to get out, she observes the creation of a snuff film. This leads her on a journey complicated by her inability to speak.

Sentence Two of that last paragraph gives you your “mute”, while Sentence One accounts for your “witness”. Let’s hear it for literal movie titles!

Publicity materials for Witness refer to it as a film in the Hitchcock vein, and I would agree. Or I concur that it attempts that tone.

But do I think Witness even remotely competes with the work of Hitchcock? No – heck, it doesn’t even live up to the standards of the Hitchcock-influenced Brian De Palma.

I get the impression those behind Witness probably spent more time at De Palma movies than at Hitchcock flicks. Indeed, its focus on filmmakers and its fake-out horror movie opening remind me a whole lot of De Palma’s 1981 release Blow Out.

I never considered myself a big De Palma fan, though I did like Blow Out and some of his other works. Even at his weakest, though, De Palma easily topped the inert and silly Witness.

The whole “mute” aspect of the movie exists as nothing more than a goofy gimmick. This allows for a mix of plot contrivances, none that make the film more compelling or tense.

It doesn’t help that Witness paints Billy as a moron. She performs so many stupid actions that we lose any potential sympathy for her.

Granted, I get that horror films require their characters to behave in ridiculous ways. If people followed logic, most flicks of this sort would collapse immediately.

Still, Billy seems so dumb that she becomes an outlier even for the genre. Eventually we kind of hope the villains murder her so we no longer need to deal with her stupidity.

Witness also becomes more and more contrived as it goes, especially when a potential “rescue” arrives in the final act. All of these choices feel like desperate attempts to wring tension out of the story.

All fail, as the relentless mix of the usual tropes and red herrings become tedious well before the end credits roll. Witness turns into a stale and scare-free mix of thriller and horror.

Mute Witness appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. While not a terrible image, this one seemed oddly “off” much of the time.

Sharpness became the most obvious issue, as a lot of the film appeared somewhat mushy and soft. Plenty of shots delivered reasonable clarity, but matters tended to come across as less precise than one would anticipate.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects materialized, and I saw no edge haloes. Grain felt natural – albeit somewhat heavy – and print flaws remained absent.

Colors leaned toward a drab brown-influenced palette. The hues seemed dull and lifeless much of the time.

Blacks felt inky and flat, while shadows appeared a bit dense and thick. Perhaps the Blu-ray replicated the source accurately, but the end result nonetheless seemed awfully bland for a movie made about 30 years ago.

Although 5.1 audio acted as the norm by 1995, Witness only offers LPCM stereo material. That doesn’t seem like a shock given the film’s low-budget origins, but it nonetheless ensures a restricted soundscape.

Music offered pretty good stereo spread and effects broadened to the sides in a moderate manner. Don’t expect much ambition, however, as the soundfield often remained close to monaural.

Audio quality seemed acceptable but unmemorable. While speech felt intelligible, the lines could lean a bit edgy at times.

The synth score showed adequate range and clarity, while effects appeared reasonable accurate, though without much impact. Expect a mediocre soundtrack here.

This release includes two separate audio commentaries, the first of which comes from writer/director Anthony Waller. He delivers a running, screen-specific look at the project’s origins, story/characters, cast and performances, sets and locations, shooting in Russia, music/audio and other production notes.

Expect a pretty strong commentary, as Waller paints the shoot’s ins and outs well. We find plenty of good “war stories” about dealing with Russian crews and other useful tidbits in this high-quality chat.

For the second commentary, we hear from production designer Matthias Kammermaier and composer Wilbert Hirsch. Moderated by critic Lee Gambin, all three sit together for a running discussion of the project’s roots, Alec Guinness’s involvement, sets and locations, music, and a mix of other production topics.

Note the absence of “screen-specific” from that summary. While those involved occasionally reflect on the action as it occurs, this happens too infrequently for me to consider this a true screen-specific discussion.

Overall, we get a fairly good chat, albeit one that repeats some of the same info from Waller’s commentary, and also one with too much praise for the film from Gambin. Still, the track comes with enough useful material to merit a listen.

Called The Silent Death, we get a visual essay. It runs 11 minutes, 33 seconds and features author/critic Alexandra Heller-Nicholas.

She talks about Witness as well as connections to the use of “snuff films” in cinema. At times this feels like just a list of movies, but we get a few insights along the way.

The Wizard Behind the Curtains spans 23 minutes, 23 seconds. It offers another visual essay, this time form author/critic Chris Alexander.

With “Curtains”, Alexander covers the subject of “movies within movies”. Like Heller-Nicholas, this discussion can seem like little more than a recitation of film titles, but Alexander also gives us a decent overview of these topics.

Under Snuff Movie Presentation (25:08), we get a reel created to generate investor interest in the project. It uses the film’s original title of Snuff Movie and comes with info from Waller, Kammermeier, producer Werner Koenig, VCL-Carolco Managing Director Datty Ruth, cameraman Laszlo Kadar, composer Hubert Bartholomae and sound/picture editor Peter Adam.

As expected, this promo piece largely exists to tell the money men why they should toss bucks at the project, so it comes with lots of happy talk. Still, it exists as a decent archival element, and we get some interesting glimpses of the filmmakers' student works.

A mix of Hitchcock and slasher flick, Mute Witness feels too derivative. It can’t overcome its lack of real creativity to become anything more than a lackluster thriller. The Blu-ray brings mediocre picture and audio along with a good array of bonus materials. I can’t find much about this limp film to recommend.