One Cut of the Dead is at first what it promises, a 37-minute long zombie horror movie with no cuts. It is the Birdman of horror movies. Long takes are super hot right now as an artsy film technique. It was only a matter of time before somebody made a shitty B-movie using a long take. (Hell, found footage movies are already pretty close to long take filmmaking already.) Video games use long takes now. Always Sunny did a long take episode five years ago. Why not zombies?
However, One Cut of the Dead has a whole other movie after those 37 minutes. Make sure to stay after the first credits roll. There are two movies in this one package, and not everything is as it seems. But let me focus on that thing a bit later. First off, the long take movie.
One Cut of the Dead feels authentically cheap. You really believe they did shoot this in one take. Because the movie is full of weird beats and awkward swings. There's pauses for no obvious reasons. Actors talk to the camera. The dialog feels random and even improved at times. The camera work is shitty and inconsistent. There's no big fancy crane shots, the cameraman has to just walk up and down a set of stairs to film actors at times. There's no lighting so the natural white light from outside blinds you over and over. The camera falls on the ground at one point, and you see the cameraman's hand wiping off the lens. There's a glaring continuity error involving an ax.
One Cut of the Dead is a bad movie. But it is the kind of bad movie you respect because, well, God bless them for even pulling it off. It looks like it was shot over a single day, maybe even in one take, and they did their best. No to spoil too much, but that is part of the illusion. Cheesy and simple and awkward can be a charm in of itself.
The plot here is that a group of filmmakers are making a shitty B-movie in an abandoned factory. However, real zombies then show up to attack the production. Meanwhile, the crazed director (Takayuki Hamatsu) demands the camera keep rolling. Now it is real.
Okay, so let's move on to the other movie. There's SPOILERS from this point on, I really recommend you watch One Cut of the Dead. Stop reading, watch it on Shudder, then maybe return afterwards. Just know, One Cut of the Dead made back over a thousand times its budget at the box office in Japan. It has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score. How does a terrible slapped-together B-movie manage that? Well, read-on at your digression.
The second part of One Cut of the Dead is a traditionally-shot film. Now we have edits, proper lighting, and "good" acting. The first movie was about a cheap horror zombie movie that gets attacked by real zombies. This second movie is about the making of that cheap zombie movie about a cheap zombie movie getting attacked by real zombies. Get it? The structure is a movie within a movie within a movie. It takes three layers, but we finally get to what is a very sweet, heartwarming comedy.
The second One Cut of the Dead is archiving the behind-the-scenes of shooting the long take movie. We see the rehearsals, the planning, and the various compromises that went into making even a bad movie. This is hard work. Respectable work, even. Turns out the fictional director (also played by Takayuki Hamatsu) had to shoot in real time. If anything goes wrong, they cannot stop. So naturally everything goes wrong, and the crew has to keep the movie running one way or another.
One Cut of the Dead is a really clever and fun movie. It is far smarter than it appears at first. The movie explains away everything you thought was a mistake. Why are there two axes? Well, they used one ax when an actress went off-script, so they just need to throw another one in to finish the scene. The cameraman actually tripped, that's why the camera fell on the ground. Every moment you thought was a mistake or a budget limitation of the first movie is explained as part of the greater plan in the second one. It even explains mistakes I did not notice.
Filmmaking is often like a magic trick. In One Cut of the Dead, you and your reactions were part of the illusion. A lot of movies can be mean-spirited when they make you part of the gag. Not the case here. One Cut of the Dead is a warm comedy that turns the act of making a terrible B-movie into something inspiring. You just want to cheer for these people. The results of movie-making may not always be glamorous or successful, but the process has an art to it. One Cut of the Dead celebrates them. This movie just makes you happier for having seen it.
Next time: That's two great movies in a row. I can risk a terrible one. Let's do Antebellum (2020), a movie I can only run from for so long.
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