‘Pick up an axe outside…’
15 minutes into Shin’ichirô Ueda’s low-budget zombie movie I thought I knew what I was dealing with. Grainy found footage. Lumbering zombies. Failed attempts at meta-humour. A sort of cross between [REC] and Charlie Brooker’s excellent zombie parody Dead Set. Dear reader, as is so often the case, I was wrong. One Cut of the Dead is something else entirely…
Director Higurashi’s (Takayuki Hamatsu) attempts to make a zombie film in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility take a dark turn when actual zombies show up. That’s all I knew going in and I’d advise against researching this odd little film any more than that.
What I will say, is that while the first 15 minutes are barely watchable, it is worth sticking with Ueda’s film for the bait and switch that ultimately follows. The zombie subgenre is creaking after the ubiquitous presence of The Walking Dead and so it requires a fresh eye and something unique to justify straying into the world of the undead, and One Cut of the Dead is innovative enough to justify its own existence, and at just over 95 minutes, it never outstays its welcome.
One Cut of the Dead will be barely comprehensible to those not already acquainted with the world of the zombie, but for horror fans, there is enough here to justify a viewing. This is the rare horror-comedy that often manages to be both funny and frightening. It also has some interesting things to say about the sacrifices that must be made to create great art. A solid entry.