Look up One Cut of the Dead and you’ll start to see glowing reports and described as a low-fi, B-movie zombie fest that has been praised as the best zombie comedy since Shaun of the Dead.
The opening shot is a one-take 37 minutes of balls-to-the-wall insanity. It’s a sight to behold that keeps you not only on the edge of the seat, but from a filmmaker’s perspective, gripped with amazement at just how much they manage to pack in and deliver a stunning piece of cinematography that hangs on some precise choreography to pull off. A huge hats off to director Shinichiro Ueda who not only has the audacity to execute such a stunt but also does it so effectively. What’s more is that isn’t the only trick up his sleeve throughout the film.

As the story unfolds, we witness a film cast and its crew shooting a zombie film in an abandoned warehouse, only to have real zombies attack them and in a way that is believable as they struggle to endure their ordeal by bumbling and fumbling there way around the one location. The actors are equally believable as they go from you’re average cast and crew to hardcore survivors of a post-apocalyptic zombie outbreak.

There are some moments that don’t sit right in your mind as it unfolds, particularly some quirky moments from the actor director who keeps popping up and taking advantage of the dire situation and forcing the undead onto his actors in order to get his vision captured with every ounce of reality involved.

There are also some incredibly awkward silences and the usual found footage trope of the cameraman who still manages to capture everything without being attacked by any zombies.

All these things have a purpose though as Ueda has his own vision in mind and plays another trick after the one-shot take has been played out. For that though it contains some spoilers. If you are keen to know more, scroll down below the image as I dissect a little further.  Continue reading →