Easily the cheapest film I’ve seen since my niece’s recital went viral, One Cut of the Dead is my favorite sleeper of 2018. Born out of one of my favorite genres, comic horror, One Cut takes it a step further by doing a “behind the scenes” documentary style follow-up that is even more hilarious than the goofy, one-take zombie film that comprised the first half.
One Cut of the Dead begins with a 37-minutes-long single-shot take describing a crew filming a fake zombie movie at a power plant when a real zombie epidemic breaks out. That, too, is all fake, so the second half of the film describes the real-life struggle that went into creating a fake zombie story becoming a real zombie story filmed all in one take, which in itself is fake, but hilarious. Did you get all that? No? Good.
Higurashi (Takayuki Hamatsu) is neither a good director, nor getting the best out of his cast … or so it seems. He’s filming a low-budget horror film and he’s not getting the performance he needs from his main actress –and daughter- Mao (Mao, yes Mao, get out of your chair, man). Wait. Is this part of the joke? Ah yes, it is. She’s supposed to underwhelm for this fight scene so that we can see her pour it on when real zombies show up. Ok, so what’s with the incidental pauses? What are the zombies waiting for? It would seem you can make a standard zombie movie really funny just by adding in random conversational gambits – why are you guys talking about hobbies? There are flesh-eating zombies outside!
I don’t wish to denigrate the initial 37 minute run – it takes a bit of skill and a ton of coordination to make a 37-minute cut (this is, apparently, what the fictional TV studio “requested”). The zombie film-in-a-film is silly fun, B or B+ stuff. The genius in One Cut, however, is the “making of” portion that follows where we get to see why and how everything in the Cut came out as it did. This stuff is mockumentary on the level of This Is Spinal Tap; it’s insightful, 
hilarious, revealing – and best of all, we really get to know the players and their hang-ups … we the audience suddenly understand every little double-take from the first round. And hey! All it took was the complete destruction of the fourth wall.
It is unlikely One Cut of the Dead will ever make it to mainstream US theaters, but even if it does not, it will live a long and happy life as one of the top cult films of the era. I doubt this formula could ever be repeated and I double secret probation doubt you would want to repeat it. Any hint of real money being poured into this production would spoil it entirely – most of the the joke here is “this is what you can do when you have 100% dedication but $0 budget.” True movie fans will get it.
“Let’s go see zombies,” she said
“My dear, you are out of your head”
And yet, from the crypt
Came a magical script
That broke the fourth wall of the dead
Not Rated, 96 Minutes
Director: Shin’ichirô Ueda
Writer: Shin’ichirô Ueda
Genre: 4th wall comedy
Person most likely to enjoy this film: Students of film
Person least likely to enjoy the film: Believers in verisimilitude
