Moscow Zero (2006) is a disappointing film. This is an independent film, but it was not meant to be a cheap exploitation movie.
There are some solid actors in the film:
Val Kilmer, Joss Ackland, Joaquim de Almeida, Rade Serbedzija, Vincent Gallo, Oksana Akinshina.
The filmmaker was trying to make an atmospheric horror movie/psychological study of darkness, and she created a soggy, boring mess.
This was a waste of some good, talented actors.
A major part of why the movie fails it that you don't really care what happens to the characters. They are characters without much connection to the audience. The characters are killed, and you don't care one way or the other. The deaths are not interesting or creative or fancy or much of anything except dull.
And there are no scares. You are supposed to be scared, but instead you are bored, waiting for something exciting or meaningful to happen. You watch the entire movie (if you don't turn it off in disgust before the end) and then think, "What a waste of time".
Most of the action is supposed to take place in chambers that are beneath Moscow. So for atmosphere, most of the film is dark, and it's sometimes difficult to see clearly what the characters are doing. Adding to the confusion, it's hard to understand why the characters act the way they do. The meaning is supposed to become clear and unfold as you watch the movie advance in time, except that the characters, like in a low-grade horror film, are doing things without much sense to them. So even when you say to yourself, after seeing the added meaning of characters/items
you saw before, "OK, now I understand what's happening more clearly", it doesn't really matter very much. The story was simple and did not make much sense before, and it still does not make much sense now. You understand what the filmmaker was trying to create, an atmospheric horror film with meaning that would slowly unfold, but she ended up with a talky, low-budget mess.
There are definitely worse movies out there. But because of the actors in this film, I was really hoping for something worth watching. And this is just a time-waster. No thrills. No scares. No interesting story.
The movie would make more sense as a video game. And be a better experience. If the movie was based on a video game, that might explain why it's such a poor movie. The filmmaker was focused on trying to make a faithful transition from video game or script to film, instead of trying to make an interesting and watchable film.
A simpler explanation might be that the director (María Lidón) is a hack who lacks the talent to make a good movie.
Hopefully, if she does make any more movies, they will be better than this one.
