Moscow Zero (2006) User Reviews

A trip to the underworld to find a friend ends in ?

[spfitz · 3/10 · 10 March 2007]

The plot in this movie is very thin, and there is not much acting. Val Kilmer--I don't know why he agreed to do this movie--plays a minor role as a gang leader. In short, the movie is tedious to watch.

One guy, who sort of resembles an archeology/religion professor, is exploring a subterranean area of Moscow, that has some history connected to railway construction and the Bolshevik revolution. A church tragedy in that history makes the exploration "spiritual" and spirits of a malevolent intent haunt the underground ruins. A friend of the professor decides to find his friend in the underground and hires a couple of Russian guides. The entire movie is based on this plot and contains much repeated footage of the underground, and some camera effects; much like those seen in "Day Watch", "Night Watch", etc.

A Vincent Gallo masterpiece performance in real crap movie

[josepedrocarlos · 2/10 · 17 October 2006]

While in Madrid I was able to see a screener copy of this film. Wow! Gallo is amazing in it. Very unusual performance he gives. Aside from Gallo's genius, the film however is a dull a film I have ever seen in my life and at times is so poorly done it borders on laughable. I am also a Val Kilmer fan so he was part of the reason I made such a grand effort to view the film. The problem is Val is really only in one scene. Having his name in the cast as the lead is an insult to my intelligence and to the rest of the cast. I have only seen Stranded of the directors other films. Both films are far far below average but both contain very interesting Vincent Gallo performances. If you are as much as a Gallo fan as I then see this film regardless of how bad it is. If you do not like Gallo then there is ZERO left to love.

Not exciting

[mryland · 2/10 · 6 November 2007]

I was hooked in by the premise that the show was about demons. From hell. And a doorway to hell. What I didn't realize was that I would be watching some guys run around tunnels chased by small children who may / may not have been demons for the entire movie. Sure there was some dialogue in between, and great underground scenery but the lack of a plot, developed characters, any twists or development in the story at all was sorely lacking. Oh, and out of interest, there were no special effects. The entire budget was spent on actors salaries, sets and lots of time running around with a camera underground.

The ending was one of the typical lackluster boring endings that makes you say "I endured this film of boredom for that!?" If you want to see demons and a doorway to hell, I promise you that you would be better off served watching the trailers to the game Hellgate : London which while shorter than this movie at 5 minutes, pack more dialogue, character development, action, plot and satisfying conclusions than this.

The second star is for effort, but overall a low score for failing to make a movie that stands out, and for promising in the tagline much more than what was delivered.

Two Ways to See this Boring and Awful Movie

[claudio_carvalho · 1/10 · 13 October 2007]

In Moscow, the priest Owen (Vincent Gallo) hires a team to guide him in the underworld to find his friend Sergei (Rade Serbedzija) that is missing while researching the legend about the existence of demons and an entrance to hell beneath the city.

I bought this DVD based on the name of Val Kilmer and the interesting pictures on the cover. I am totally disappointed since this film is one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I do not understand how Val Kilmer accepted to participate in this production. There are two shameful reviews in IMDb promoting this movie and they are typically fake, written by users with only one review in this site. There are two possible ways to see this boring and awful film: my wife and I napped many times because of the monotony of this pointless story, and we used the rewind button of the DVD to repeat each lost scene. However, the correct way should have been the use of the fast forward or the stop button, to end this crap faster. My vote is one.

Title (Brazil): "Cidade Sombria" ("Dark City")

Like watching paint dry

[chris-jones-peter · 1/10 · 26 October 2007]

After watching this film I decided that it was so awful that I must join IMDb and write a review to warn other people of the pit falls of renting/buying this film. To be fair to the film there is only one good section to this film and that is the end credits cause then you know that this crap is well and truly over. I watched it to the end in the hope that I may get a little bit of pleasure out of the film. Just tunnels more tunnels and an old man talking to himself (If you watch this film too many time so will you). As for Val if he keeps selecting films like this he may as well kiss goodbye to his acting career. There is no point in even writing about what is in the film as that has already been done. Keep your money and sanity and keep well clear.

I can't remember a worse film

[pete-784 · 1/10 · 18 October 2006]

If you enjoy sitting in the dark, both literally and figuratively, for ninety minutes then this is the movie for you.

A waste of actors, resources and audience time. Ultimately a waste of space. Don't be tempted by the resume. There is nothing of any further substance beyond it. The film lacks all of the basics that you might expect from the genre; plot, character, development, denouement. The cast may perhaps take heart from the knowledge that in this instance their efforts will be entirely forgettable and, given time, their careers may perhaps improve.

Absolute tripe.

I don't know why do people record such films

[bojan_agotic · 1/10 · 10 April 2007]

I can't remember the worst film I have watched.Total waste of actors and audience time.If you prefer sitting by your TV and think when will be this film over,then this is the right film for you.Maybe this film is recorded to make people believe that Moscow has some mystique past. But I must say I have not expect anything else from Rade Serbedzija,but I have expected more from Vincent Gallo.The film lacks a plot, character,development,denouement.Entire movie is about underground tunnels and how they are mystique.I must be fair there is some camera effect but even that is too poor.Over and over are the same pictures.Total waste of time.

Complete and utter crap

[Craig_McPherson · 1/10 · 28 May 2009]

There are good movies, and there are bad movies, and then there's Moscow Zero, a film so utterly bad it makes spending a month in solitary with an insurance salesman an attractive entertainment alternative.

With an incomprehensible plot about the gates of Hell opening within a labyrinth of tunnels under Moscow, the film is a mess of repetitive and nonsensical shots of a little girl running through tunnels, red lights floating about, and strange wall shadows, none of which serves to mount any fear or tension, but instead elicits the reaction of "here they go again with the girl (or lights)" from the viewer.

Directed by María Lidón, who for reasons I can only conclude as shame, was billed as Luna, the movie stars Vince Gallo as Owen, an American priest who travels to Moscow in search of Sergei (Rade Serbedzija), a friend and colleague who has gone missing in the tunnels. He enlists the help of a series of locals who, with the exception of Oksana Akinshina, are all portrayed by Spanish actors trying with limited success to inflect Russian accents.

Along the way they cross paths with members of some sort of underground leather-coated religious mafia headed by a portly Val Kilmer, whose career seems to be in such free fall that he's resorted to appearing in dreck like this, and henchman Sage Stallone (Sly's son), who seems to have been cast merely so the Stallone name can be included in the film's marquee.

Apart from watching the troupe try to navigate their way through the tunnels with the aid of a comically drawn map, and repetitive shots of them being followed or eluded by a pale faced young girl, not much else goes on throughout. Dialogue routinely switches between English and Russian, with actors frequently taking turns in each language, and entire conversations are uttered half in one and half in the other with the only apparent reason being they felt like it, adding a frustrating dimension for the viewer, over and above trying to figure out the crazily cobbled together story.

About the only thing Moscow Zero gets right, however, is its title, which could only have rendered a more accurate description of this movie if the word Moscow had been omitted.

Pure crap

[barkerking · 1/10 · 26 November 2006]

I suffered the watching of this movie at Sitges Festival last month. If there would be a possibility of "unfilm" a movie to avoid its existence, this should be the first in the list. María Lidón isn't a director, she is just a dumb woman that pretends that holding a camera with the hand and shout "action" makes her a professional film maker. What a mistake! The movie itself is pointless and a total waste of good actors that could be doing something better in another project. Val Kilmer does nothing but place his face in front of the camera. His character don't have specific weight in the movie. The same thing can tell about Joss Ackland, Vincent Gallo or Joaquim De Almeida. It's a shame the way Rade Serbedzija's character has been written. WARNING SPOILERS

He spends most of the time alone in the tunnels talking with himself in the way (now I'm doing this, now I'm low of bats, I'll search in my bag, now I'm turning left, now I'm turning right...) only to bring the audience a clear idea about his actions. It's simply nonsense and proves the lack of talent of the director. END OF SPOILERS

The usual joke about this piece of garbage among the audience was that the title of the movie itself brought the clue about the rating everyone should give it: ZERO

It's better than a 3

[poisonbrothertwo · 5/10 · 11 August 2021]

A slow boil that leaves a lot of the plot up for the viewer to decide what to do with. I gave it a solid 5.

A different kind of film

[ranjitsisa · 8/10 · 23 December 2008]

I must say the movie is highly under-rated in IMDb. We are not looking here for a typical FBI Thriller or a romantic plot. It is a discovery of a legend by Sergei and this leads to so many discoveries. Although the movie is mostly set in dark and closed alleys, but it was well shot and actually depicts the real feeling as if you are inside that place as defined in the plot.

It is a 'different' kind of a movie and it is actually very nicely done. The story has been treated well.

The Sister tried to protect the kids from daemons that lived at higher levels... and I presume all the kids and the sister died of hunger... But what was not clear is why would children (shadows of daemons) kill people who would come down... Well maybe because all of them had to sacrifice their lives and die of hunger.

The gates to Hell

[mario_c · 7/10 · 13 February 2008]

MOSCOW ZERO is a really dark, mystical and supernatural film. The plot is very straight to follow since it's just about a quest to find SERGEI (played by Rade Serbedzija) an old friend of the father OWEN (played by Vincent Gallo) that went to the catacombs of Moscow alone. The entire movie is passed in there. Though the film has a very open ending, which is, by the way, very well connected to the mysterious and mystical ambiance that is always present… What I appreciated the most in the film was precisely this mystical and supernatural ambiance of this story and the way it was shot. It has a great cinematography, creating very dark and claustrophobic scenarios. The soundtrack is also good, because it also has mysterious, dark, melancholic and melodic music, like a ghost story must have! One other detail that I also appreciated was the fact of the demons were characterized only as shadows, as a dark light in the underworld… I found it so much better than the traditional way of characterize demons as little monsters with sharpened teethes, horns and a back tail…

I think this film is very well produced, though I agree it's a bit slow sometimes and could have been more suspenseful. However I also think this melancholy present in the plot and the soundtrack fits perfectly in a dark and mystical story like this.

The acting is reasonably good, but I only would like to mention the Portuguese actor Joaquim de Almeida, playing YURI character… It was a surprise to me hearing him speaking some lines in Russian, but he's a "box of surprises" anyway…

I also would like to say that I think this movie is too much underrated here on IMDb. I Liked this film, especially because of its ambiance as I said before, and I found pretty absurd that a user can say things like this: "There are two shameful reviews in IMDb promoting this movie and they are typically fake, written by users with only one review in this site". Just because he has more than 3000 reviews he thinks he's opinion is better than anyone else's! It's really sad…

My final vote to this different but good film is 7/10.

The Title Says It All...Moscow ZERO!

[Scott4Jesus · 1/10 · 2 January 2009]

If they had a Zero out of 10 I would of entered it. Everyone involved in this film should be ashamed of themselves taking money from the public. I don't know how films like this get released Video or Pay Channel. I am disappointed in Vincent Gallo. Val Kilmer was in it for about 8 minutes, so I can't get that mad at him. Only the person who listed him to be the star in it. It is like Marlon Brando in Superman.There is no plot except Gallo searching and finding his friend in the catacombs. Why they were searching for the gates of hell only the director knows. They should of kept this film in Moscow and burned it for fire to keep all the homeless extras warm for the night. There is nothing more to say about this film that all the other reviewers have written. I wish I could forget this movie it hurts my brain.

This Movie Makes No Sense at All!

[ffflamingoes · 1/10 · 1 January 2009]

The gates of Hell opened up and spit out this film, then closed again.

Watching this movie makes me appreciate other movies I have seen, like all other movies. Nothing makes sense in this movie.

It would really take too long to mention all the plot problems. In fact, except as a warning, it really isn't worth wasting some of the nearly infinite space available on the internet writing about this film.

From now on, I will check IMDb before watching any film.

Hot darn, IMDb is forcing me to write more about this film. I guess I should warn you about Edison Force while I am at it. But if you had to chose between the two, pick Edison Force.

Knock, knock, knocking at the gates of Hell.

[michaelRokeefe · 1/10 · 21 November 2008]

Sit in your basement with the light out for an hour and a half. That's about the same as watching this subterranean search for the Devil's door. An American researcher Owen(Vincent Gallo)travels to Moscow and gathers a rescue team to search for his friend Sergei(Rade Serbedzia), an archaeologist who has disappeared in the catacombs beneath Russia's capital city. They will be shocked to discover subterranean dwellers thriving in the dank and dark complex system of caves and tunnels. The searchers will come upon the gatekeeper of Hell, Andrey(Val Kilmer), and will strike a deal to continue their venture; only to succeed in being scared almost witless when realizing they are among walking dead. Also in the cast: Joaquin de Almedia, Oksana Akinshina, Sage Stallone, Joss Ackland and Julio Perillan.

A good plot gone to waste

[keremrs · 5/10 · 15 December 2009]

I think this film is a bit under-rated(3.4) Well, first the upsides: The plot is quite good. There is a sad and chilling main story behind, that is genuinely impressive. There is a certain atmosphere mainly depending on the space. It is suffocating and has a morbid effect on the viewer. The children's discretion adds up to the dark aura of the film. This is not the kind of film for an average viewer with an expectation to be entertained; you must have some patience to get some taste. I think it is not a typical thriller/horror film with cliché Hollywood scenes. It feels kind of experimental and some credit must be given for that.

The downsides are many: this is also not the kind of movie that can satisfy any good viewer (sorry to say). Despite the toil of all the cast and crew, the result is not bright: -There is a great cast but the acting is somehow missed by the camera... -Although I am a huge fan, I am starting to grow an opinion that Val Kilmer doesn't really know how to choose a right project. Not only is he seen only as long as a cameo, his awesomeness is also totally ignored. How and why his group is dwelling there is a boring riddle that I don't want to solve... -Someone must tell Vincent Gallo that despite having a very characteristic face, being expressionless all the time can only be afforded by great and aged actors... -The screenplay is also bad: the dialogues are not integrated, nor able to add up to anything... -Misleading without intention is frequent. A more dedicated director could have made a great film with this story because here, opportunity to boost the mystery is lost while also some explanatory scenes were omitted as well (such as the revolution incidents) -The motive of the children (are they all children?) is also not clear: is it fear or vengeance or protection or punishment??? Also the sadness of the situation could be emphasized someplace. while a simple reflex of grudge must not be an issue here. -Tension and relief is a chemical must for such movies even for a marginal example. Here both the dialogues+acting and the maze shoots are monotonous. -The relationships between the main characters are totally vague and without any depth. - Just a little more effort on the visual effects could have been much useful. And I don't mean expensive CGI, but some some sweat for editing.

Last word: This movie is only for freaks like me who love to experiment and review new possibilities in cinema and choose to waste time on it.

Horrible...Absolutely Horrible

[johnpatrick-3 · 1/10 · 27 November 2008]

Val Kilmer is almost nowhere in this film -lucky for him! He plays maybe 30 seconds of screen time and his role is completely irrelevant. After seeing the film I couldn't tell you what "role" he plays in the film!!?? OK... they suck you in the first hour by immersing you in dark underground tunnels. Spooky movies filmed in dark underground tunnels easily suck most people in to last the first 30 minutes to an hour. Then you will begin wondering, "why am I watching this?" I remember thinking how easy it must be for a director/writer to use dark underground labyrinths to make a film. Simply film people wandering around in dark tunnels and you have instant "suspense". But that is where this movie goes no further! We all wonder what goes bump in the night, but there is nothing out there in the dark in this film but more darkness. The story is even worse. Apparently there is an underlying story to the film that I learned of "after" watching the film. But the film uses such poor dialouge that it never came across clearly during the screening. I still don't understand what the writer/director meant to say. Some children trapped underground by a misled sister in Russia? Why? Are they in our time -the same time as the characters? Are they ghosts?

This was an absolutely Horrible film that drew me to write my first IMDb review to warn others to avoid it.

Awful is putting it mildly

[HannaB555 · 1/10 · 1 May 2010]

Whose sick and vacant mind produced this "picture" and what on earth possessed some rather good actors to take part in this project I shall never know. If you do not want to seriously regret wasting 1.5 hours of your time (which feel like eternity), then watch this film. Nothing happens. NOTHING. AT ALL. AT ANY POINT. Watching paint dry is a hundred times more interesting. There is no plot, there is no action, the characters are ridiculous, you just watch strange people running from one cave to another in total darkness and hear some echoes in the background, but even that sounds more interesting than actually watching it. Zero is what this film is. Awful.

Quite possibly the worst film ever

[dean-lennard · 1/10 · 5 November 2007]

This is by far the worst film i have ever seen it has next to no plot and the plot it does have is very scattered. The story line is lacking in both content, suspense and subtitles, as what would appear to be story line is in Russian. The set appears to be only one room with various lighting effects and at the moment you think something good is about to happen you are let down by the total lack of acting, drama, suspense, horror, gore, story line and mythology. The directing style has been done to death(The fisheye camera). It would seem that the only action in this film is within the last 10 - 15 minutes and the action is made worse by the actors inability to portray the suspense correctly. The only interesting thing about this movie was my dog barking at the surround sound.

Zero indeed!

[thebigitaly50 · 1/10 · 2 January 2009]

This movie is total dreck. I love Val Kilmer and was very surprised earlier this year by "Felon" (a good movie!). The entire DVD box is misleading. Val Kilmer while being billed as one of the main people in this film, is in the movie for about 2 minutes. Even the summary on the back of the DVD is not entirely true. This could have been a good movie but the direction was horrible and the plot was about as thin as a sheet of paper. Usually when a movie is this horrendous you can sit back and laugh at it. This film though is so bad and boring I actually fell asleep to it (which I never do during a movie). AVOID AT ALL COSTS!

Fantastic, atmospheric chiller!

[NateWatchesCoolMovies · 10/10 · 7 November 2008]

Moscow Zero is a chilly little subterranean ghost story, and a favourite for me. It god critically shredded by the few people who did see it, and quickly forgotten. I think this may be because of odd marketing,and the cultural rifts in different areas of both the world, and cinema. It was marketed in North America as a supernatural shocker starring Val Kilmer, which was a cheap shot to fans and in fact false advertising. Kilmer is in it, for maybe ten minutes, and is very good, but the story isn't his. It's also supernatural, but in a far more subtle, ambiguous and inaccessible way that the ADHD-ridden audiences over here just aren't used to. In short, it's very European, and they just seem to have a better handle on the intuition it takes to make an atmospheric chiller than anyone else, also seeming to be more connected with ghost lore and the spirit realm. The story concerns a priest named Father Owen (hollywood's resident alien Vincent Gallo, playing it dead straight here). He has traveled to Moscow I hopes of finding his friend Professor Sergey (Rade Serbedzija), who has descended into ancient catacombs and endless tunnels below the surface of the city in hopes of finding a lost artifact hidden during wartime. He joins up with a group of guides and Moscow natives including the beautiful Lubya (Oksana Akinshina) and a tracker named Yuri (Joaquim De Almeida) to traverse the underside of the city and find his friend. There are long, eerie scenes of Sergey wandering around the dimly lit labyrinth, pursuing his scholarly goal and talking to himself as strange shadows and far away whispers follow him around, gradually letting the viewer know that he's not alone. Owen and his team rendezvous with Tolstoy (Joss Ackland) the elderly leader of a tribe of tunnel dwellers who won't go below a certain level of the catacombs, who provides a map. Then they go deeper. Kilmer plays Andrey, a Russian dude who runs a gang that are in control of opening and closing a deep fissure gate that is said to lead to a hell like place. He's relaxed, in both demeanor and the Russian accent, but he's clearly having fun in one of his more character type roles. The catacombs have a haunted feel to them, and indeed there are ghosts, but not presented in the way you might think. The way the human characters see them is quite different from how they see themselves, and how the audience sees them, which is a nice touch. The story keeps itself mysterious, right up until it's puzzling, creepy conclusion, buy I prefer that open ended, almost experimental style over desperate attempts to scare us. It's atmospheric, strange, unique, thick with ideas and altogether a bit of brilliance. Definitely an acquire taste, though.

Bizarre and weird Spain/United Kingdom co-production dealing with chilling and mysterious events

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 26 April 2020]

A mysterious and suspenseful film dealing with astonishing happenings. It concerns a priest called Owen : Vincent Gallo who hires a team to guide him into Moscow underword. His purport, along with his companions formed by a couple of Russian natives, is to find his friend Sergei, Rade Serbedzja, who was missing while researching dark legends about fantastic sanatic cults, as well as about a door leading to hell beneath Moscow. As in the bunch of misfits are the following ones : the beautiful Oksana Akinshina, the cunning tracker Joaquin De Almeida, Sage Stallone, among others. Along the way, they encounter scary demons and a group of children haunting them. A film by Luna in which the gates of the underworld have been opened !.

This is a supernatural and suspenseful shocker with thrills, chills and terrifying scenes.This ghost story picture displays lots of creepy, scary happenings and rare moments. It is set against the backdrop of seemingly endless underworld corridors in Moscow city, while a reverend accompanied by a motley group uncover strange evidences of horrifiyng spirits and bizarre devils . It keeps the mystery all around until he final, resulting in a complexing and puzzling conclusion. The main and support cast are acceptable, Vincent Gallo as an obstinate reverend with whom fall the beautiful Oksana Akinshina who previously starred Kyla 4 ever, the Portuguese Joaquin De Almeida, the veteran Joss Ackland, Rade Serbedzja, Sage Stallone who's Sylvester's son, and Spanish actors as Julio Periñan, Alex O'Dogherty, among others.

It packs an atmospheric and eerie musical score by Javier Navarrete, an expert musician who has composed great international successes such as : Pan's labyrinth, Wrath of the titans, Mirrors, Byzantium, Inkheart, Fireflies in the garden, Greta, among others. As well as dark and sinister cinematography by Ricardo Aronovich. The motion picture was regular but professionally directed by Maria Lidon or Luna, in her last one. Lidon is a good filmmaker who has only made three passable films, all of them starred by Joaquin de Almeida : Stranded or Naufragos 2001 with Vincent Gallo, Yo Puta 2004 with Denise Richards, Daryn Hannah and this Moscow Zero. Rating 5.5/10.

No Depth

[SDSon · 1/10 · 10 May 2008]

It seems that there is great potential for the story line of this film to be something worth watching. The acting was flat and the story lacked depth. There was too much reliance on camera work, which had some high points. I have to agree with the other negative comments. I only wish I had read them before buying the DVD. The film may be worth watching for free and you are bored to tears before hand. There could have been a lot more plot development with why there are homeless in Moscow (i.e. post-Soviet 'capitalism', rampant drug usage (i.e. increased heroin trafficking from Afghanistan); more development of why the resurgence of Russian Orthodoxy after the fall of the U.S.S.R.; the archaeologists themselves; or even more into the struggle against nihilism.

And they walked and they walked and they walked, and then they ran a little bit....

[david_ostby · 3/10 · 22 February 2009]

This line is a good summary of this movie. If you have read it, and watched 20 minutes of the movie, you will know exactly how the rest of the movie is going to behave. Some researcher named Surgei (pronounced SirGay) are searching for hell in the underworld of Moscow. However he seems to have disappeared, and his friend Oven follows with a team to search after him. Could they have find a more boring plot? Some bad actors looking after an old man in the underground. The acting is very bad, the romance really feels pointless and untrue, often there is no good reason for the way the characters are acting, nothing is scary and most of all: there's not happening anything interesting in the whole, entire movie. They just walk, asking some gang leaders and other guys about the way, walk some more, complain some, finds the old man, and then they run, and finally finds the way out of the underground.

The only thing that provides me from giving this movie the lowest of all ratings is the atmosphere. If you just want to see a movie for that, this may be a good choice. It's dark, and it's mystical and murky. However, the rest of the movie is really dull. You just sit there all the time, waiting for the movie to begin or something to happening. It's actually happening some things, but they are not very well performed. For example, i didn't really notice when one of the characters disappeared, and I swear I wasn't sleeping or something. And I don't understand what's dangerous with these children... They just run around in the underground together, scratching it walls with sticks (I suppose it is meant to be scary in some way).

Just watch this movie if you are in immediate need of some murky atmospheres.

They had a great movie idea, and that was about it.

[pacassells · 2/10 · 4 April 2011]

A friend goes looking for his missing friend in the bowls of some Russian city, He hires some guides, and they are introduced an underworld of people. The missing guy seems on the tract to some mystical discovery and the searching friends learn more about the story as the film goes on. The acting and the sets were fantastic. The description led me to believe that this was to be some sort of good vs evil confrontation. Sadly that wasn't the case, and the story morphed into ....well a pretty lame ending.

On the bright side, the best thing I can say about this movie was that it only cost me $2.00 cause Block Buster is going out of business.

To recap: Great acting, awesome sets, crappy ending.