This Japanese zombie film hides its secrets so well that once you finish it, you will want to watch it again straight away just to spot how it was done
It almost seems a shame to tell you anything about One Cut of the Dead, given so much of its charm comes from having no idea what you are about to watch. If you have a spare 90 minutes, close this and go watch it. If that plea is not enough to convince you, read on at your peril. Hopefully you’ll just want to watch even more – for this low-budget Japanese zombie comedy film is so startlingly inventive and meticulously constructed that once you’ve watched it, you will likely watch it a second time just to spot how it was done anyway.
One Cut of the Dead follows an amateur cast and crew shooting a low-budget zombie film. Their set is an abandoned and possibly haunted water filtration plant, rumoured to have once been used by the Japanese army for human experiments. The film’s director, Takayuki Higurashi (played by Takayuki Hamatsu), is frustrated by his young cast’s stilted acting, so – as any go-getting film-maker would – he paints a pentagram with blood on the roof, hoping to summon the undead to inspire some genuine fear in his actors. Sure enough, we watch as everyone on set becomes zombified over a single, 37-minute-long take, guts and brains splattering on to the camera lens until just one person is left alive. Credits roll.
