"One Cut of the Dead" Lies To You
- Vega
- Sep 12, 2020
- 2 min read
Every once in a blue moon a film comes along that legitimately surprises you, not necessarily in the details of the plot or the performances, but by flipping the script on what you think you're watching. There are movies that I think have supplied great twists, in the sense of something not being what it seems and those pieces coming together: Memento, The Sixth Sense, The Uninvited, Shutter Island, Atonement, etc.
Then, there are movies that straight up lie to you about what you're watching and when the reality hits, you're either shocked into excitement or disappointingly pissed off. Less of a twist and more of a complete shift. I have only experienced this one time before and that was during a movie called Ask Me Anything, that is, until there came One Cut of the Dead. The film's synopsis is billed as “Things go badly for a hack director and film crew shooting a low budget zombie film in an abandoned WWII Japanese facility when they are attacked by real zombies”.
This very short and atypical review will say this: you will probably get pissed at this movie. To favorably experience the film, you have to be ok with three things: firstly, this is not a horror-comedy; secondly, this is not a zombie movie; and thirdly, this a movie about family. I knew there was a structural shift in this movie and yet I was still disappointed and did not like the film for most of the viewing. By the end, I realized how entertained I ended up being, even with my expectation of a horror movie trampled and burned.
One Cut of the Dead is a Shudder-exclusive, but you can luckily find either a 7- or 30-day free trial if you aren't interested enough in signing up for the service (or you could watch it in more illicit ways). Just watch it. With so much cookie cutter, remakes, superhero, and shallow straight to streaming offerings in Hollywood today, something different in every way can be quite refreshing.
RATING: ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ ⭐
Strengths:
Unpredictable and different
Interesting from a production aspect
Weaknesses:
Horror fans are likely to end up hating not getting what was advertised
The shift may not be worthwhile enough
The transition is a bit confusing at first
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