I’ve been staring at a blinking cursor, wondering how to construct this piece without giving too much away. Those of you who have seen the movie will know my dilemma. Those of you who haven’t may wonder why I phrase things a certain way. That’s what One Cut of the Dead is like: there’s a little bit of “wait, what?” going on in the beginning, but that’s only because you haven’t been initiated into the club yet.
So… do you like Japanese horror movies? Here’s one that ultimately does something so unexpected, it will likely become a part of the subgenre’s conversation forever. What starts out looking like nothing special eventually reveals itself to be layered in a thrilling way. There were parts of it that made me think, “What the fuck is this shit?” And by the end, I was happily won over. I think most will be, too, even if they’re not fans of horror. It’s the rarest kind of movie that begs to be seen again as soon as possible.
Here’s the premise: a small crew of filmmakers are shooting a low budget zombie movie when they’re attacked by actual zombies. It turns out the director of the movie-within-the-movie has summoned the real zombies to get a better performance from his lead actress. Now he runs around with a handheld camera, popping out of nowhere to enthusiastically yell “Action!” whenever she’s being attacked by the flesh eaters. Never mind the fact that none of the director’s footage would be usable. The dude has completely lost it.
Thankfully we’re not watching the movie through the lens of the erratic movie director, who drops in and out of the mayhem as his insanity deems fit. Instead we’re watching the events as captured by a silent camera operator who, in real life, would be screaming their head off. Yes, everything I described is captured in one continuous shot, hence the terrible title. The end credits say it’s based on a stage play (no surprise there) with a much better title: Ghost in the Box… though there aren’t any ghosts in the movie so I suppose it’s a very loose adaptation. (I wouldn’t know because I’ve never seen the play as I don’t live in Japan.)
I digress. There have been several such movies designed to look as if they were captured in one take. The result is often impressive, but the more it’s done, the more it becomes a gimmick. One Cut of the Dead is very much a gimmick, but that’s clearly by design. It’s a gimmick with a purpose. Shot on location at an abandoned water treatment facility (standing in for a top secret military installation), the scenery offers a dynamic playground for the performers to run around in. At one point an actor almost falls through the railing of a second floor balcony for real, but the movie, as it must, goes on. When you’re shooting like this, you only get one shot, no resets, so cut it some slack, will ya?
This is like professional wrestling: not everything is sold well, but it’s extremely entertaining, more so in its second half than its peculiar first. It’s so wild, I kept thinking: Wouldn’t it be great to see the behind-the-scenes footage? I have a feeling that stuff would make the movie, and what it accomplishes, even more impressive. So that’s all I’m gonna say about this one, which is one of the more exciting movies I’ve seen all month. What a blast.
