ONE CUT OF THE DEAD (2017)
WARNING: 2017’s ONE CUT OF THE DEAD is the kind of film you ought to watch without reading the plot or checking out the trailer. It’s a tale of three acts each with its own set of surprises. I’ll be going into spoiler territory in this piece to talk about the comedic aspects, which requires dealing with specific plot elements of the third act.
Writer/director Shin'ichirō Ueda’s ONE CUT OF THE DEAD is a constantly evolving film that changes with each turn. The first act is a straightforward (if sloppy and awkward) zombie movie with a hook that it is filmed in one continuous take. The camera never cuts away as the many familiar undead tropes like eerie music, jump scares, and can’t forget the blood, play out in an abandoned building in the countryside. It’s in the third and final act where Ueda’s brilliance shines as he not only changes the tone of the movie but retroactively changes the whole perspective of its first 37 minutes.
Director Higurashi (Takayuki Hamatsu) is set to direct a zombie movie that will broadcast live on TV with a the hook being not only is it live, but there are no cuts between scenes or sequences. A ragtag group is thrown together to make the film, but chaos begins to unfold with only two hours left before air. Two lead actors do not show up due to a car accident, causing Higurashi and his wife Nao (Harumi Shuhama) to fill in for the roles. And with each subsequent curveball, mistake, and bit of bad luck, hat atmospheric horror music we heard in the first act is replaced by a more upbeat and comical score. As different issues escalate amongst the personnel and raise the stress level to 100, director Higurashi gives it his all, delivering the single take zombie special live on television with no issues (at least, as far as the executives watching the broadcast can tell).
While there are many titles that do the whole “filming a film within a film,” 2017’s ONE CUT OF THE DEAD takes a slightly different tactic and adopts the formula that was used in 1992’s NOISES OFF (directed by Peter Bogdanovich, based on a play by Michael Frayn).
The structure of that play (and movie adaptation) also involves re-showing the same story from a different tone and perspective. But Ueda adds a lot more backstory, including hiring of cast and crew, rehearsals, studio politics and more that set the stage for a lack of effort and confidence the group have in pulling off their one-shot movie. By going back in the story and showing the hoops they had to go through to accomplish and finish this zombie special in the beginning of the film, it makes the fact they pulled off anything close to a successful movie already a triumph…with the best and funniest twists waiting to be revealed in the actual shooting portion (the third act).
The absurdity of the actors and issues that arise creates a sense of hilarious mania with an infectious energy that makes audiences laugh at the madcap nature of it all. One actor (Manabu Hosoi) that gets drunk and literally passes out minutes before they go live, while another (Shuntaro Yamazaki) gets sick and must relieve himself in front of a makeup artist prepping for the next scene. Not to mention the convolute manner in which Nao is forced to drive the two leads of the film within the film (Yuzuki Akiyama and Kazuaki Nagaya) into the setups for jump scares and action sequences all while attempting follow the script and hysterical directions given by her husband.
While funny and hilarious, seeing this all unfold in ONE CUT OF THE DEAD, you can’t help but root for these misfits to somehow pull it off. Even though we all saw the finished product in the first act, you are so mesmerized by all the absurdity and obstacles that you forget you know they make it happen. Just like how you can go into any movie knowing that the majority of the time the good guy beats the bad guy—knowing that, we still watch and root for the hero to be victorious. In ONE CUT OF THE DEAD, part of the reason we get lost in the bedlam is because of the endearing characters that are trying their best despite everything pitted against them. How can you not cheer for these people?
Watching this crew from the inception of the project to rehearsals to the final minutes before they go live, we get to know and care about each of them while trying to figure out how the latest problem ends up being resolved “on screen” in the live broadcast. The actors grab viewers by the hand on an emotional sprint of panic, euphoria, hope, fear, and more as we see what they must do in order to not stop production.
The comedy starts off due to watching a possible “so bad it’s good” low-budget zombie film, but grows as Ueda reveals the choices that resulted in the finished product we saw in the beginning. What was initially perceived as a startling moment of a zombie trying to attack the main actors is hilariously the result of a director forcing a drunk actor get in position for his cue. Seeing those types of instances of turning a scene from horror to comedy is what I love about the film, making it a must see for everyone that is a fan of horror or comedy—or sometimes both, as ONE CUT OF THE DEAD shows it can all be a matter of perspective.
