One of the most profitable horror-comedies in history on a mere budget of roughly $25,000, One Cut of the Dead is something of an anomaly.
Horror, as it stands in 2019, has experienced something of a new-age surge in popularity that has transcended the world of horror movie fandom. Film distribution and production companies like A24, Neon, and the ever-popular horror section of Warner Bros. have taken great strides in providing us with a wide variety of horror content, ranging from the supernatural to the slow-burn psychological treats we get from more “elevated” fare. That’s not to say that the 21st century hasn’t gifted us with great horror, but its presence hasn’t quite felt as mainstream as nowadays.
Horror blockbusters, while not necessarily always the norm, pop up a bit more often than normal, with movies like the It series, the Conjuring franchise, and original fare like Get Out, Us, and A Quiet Place joining the likes of Jaws, Psycho, and Alien in terms of critical and commercial success. But one thing that all of these movies have in common is a big-scale feel towards their stories. These films, even the small ones, feel more like horror-event films, encouraging people to come and join the party. There are big names and high concepts present in these films, almost guaranteeing a level of success.
But One Cut of the Dead has none of these advantages. The zombie comedy has a cast of unknown actors and a director, Shinichiro Ueda, whose shorts and features were pretty lowkey before coming out with the acclaimed zombie comedy in 2017. Not only that, but the movie’s plot, while featuring a heavy use of zombies, isn’t exactly what one would call a guaranteed recipe for success. With a small budget of roughly $25,000, this movie really shouldn’t work from a business standpoint.
Two years later and now One Cut of the Dead can accurately be described as an indie phenomenon. Grossing over 1,000 times its small budget, Ueda’s ambitious zombie comedy earned over $27 million in its home country of Japan and an extra $3 million from international territories to stand at approximately $30 million worldwide. I realize that financial success does not always translate to a good film, but One Cut of the Dead’s immense popularity in spite of its small stature most likely means that audiences must’ve loved the film for a reason. Why else would they fork up money to pay for a low-budget zombie comedy with less-than-convincing zombies chasing around a hapless film crew?
From here on out, there will be major spoilers for One Cut of the Dead. If you have not seen it and want to be surprised, refrain from reading further.
One Cut of the Dead makes a huge plunge in its first act, subjecting the audience to a lengthy (40 minutes in fact) take depicting a hack director freaking out on his film crew for being unable to film a scene from his zombie film to his liking. This rage causes him to use the fake blood from his film to summon real zombies onto the set as he holds a camera and insists on shooting the whole thing guerilla style, a la Tropic Thunder. From there, we get the film crew running around the abandoned water plant used for filming as zombies clumsily try to eat them all.
With it being a 40-minute take, there’s moments of awkwardness and dead air as the film crew seem to be taking their sweet time with trying to escape from the zombies. The zombies themselves seem a little air-headed, with the majority of them stumbling and falling over. Regardless, only one person, the film-within-a-film’s main actress (Yuzuki Akiyama) is the sole survivor, with her blood-soaked face looking up to the sky as credits roll over her standing in the middle of the director’s bloody voodoo star used to revive the zombies.
But as soon as we hear “CUT!”, the real movie reveals itself to us.
One Cut of the Dead’s tonal shift after the 40-minute take has largely been one of the most hyped aspects of the film. The 40-minute introduction plays out like some unique endurance test, presenting audiences with a short zombie film that’s chock-full of awkward acting, frantic camera movement, unintentional fourth wall breaks, and inconsistencies so frequent that Cinema Sins could do an hour-long video on them. Despite some pretty obvious mistakes and hints, the film never truly reveals its hand until the end of the 40-minute take, where the jig is officially up and the film instead plays on like a family comedy.
Essentially, One Cut of the Dead is a movie about making a zombie movie, with mild-mannered director, Takayuki Higurashi, being approached to helm a 30-minute long zombie film to be broadcast live on a horror TV channel. One camera is to be used in one continuous take for the live audience and with the small crew and budget he has, this proves to somehow be far scarier than any hypothetical zombie invasion.
With the $25,000 budget severely limiting the resources that could be used for believable props and big-name actors, Ueda relied on his film school buddies and a unique premise that didn’t require a vast amount of locations. Apart from the water infiltration plant, the film’s sets are mostly comprised of one apartment, a studio room, a rooftop, and a couple of outdoor locations. This isn’t to dismiss the hard work that went into each of these scenes, but this isn’t something like The Revenant with its ambitious action sequences.
One Cut of the Dead is a polar opposite to the many successful horror films we’ve seen over the years. The concept, when boiled down, is something that general audiences unfamiliar with the film industry may not resonate with; and the film itself is not scary in the slightest. Even the most popular horror-comedies like The Evil Dead, Scream, and The Cabin in the Woods contain some element of horror to counterbalance the comedy. But One Cut of the Dead intentionally misleads the general population with its promise of a zombie horror film. As we’ve seen with the likes of It Comes At Night and mother!, fan backlash is a likely possibility with this tactic.
But Ueda’s feature won over audiences from all over the world and the film’s inspiring message may have had a large part in that. Coming from a film school student like Ueda, One Cut of the Dead is both inviting and confident in its own skin without being condescending towards its audience. The intricacies of filmmaking are not dumbed down for a general audience nor does the film try and paint its characters as members of an exclusive club in the entertainment industry. The filmmakers are regular people getting by, much like you or me, and their jobs are not glamourized for the audience.
Higurashi, who is first introduced as the lunatic director in the film-within-a-film, is shown to be quite the opposite off-camera. He’s incredibly mundane when not working and polite, all to a fault. He’s not an eccentric director on the levels of Quentin Tarantino or Taika Waititi and though passionate, he is nowhere near the control freak that the likes of David Fincher or Michael Haneke can be. As far as the movie is concerned, he’s just an average guy getting by (something which he ironically uses as a selling point for his work). The illusion of glitz and glamour of filmmaking is lost with him, but the heart of it is always beating.
As the digital age continues to thrive with technology advancing to levels that weren’t even comprehensible 50 years ago, amateur filmmaking is at an all-time high now. Distant are the days of requiring a bulky camera and fancy equipment to make a film. Now you can pull out your phone and record practically anything you want; and even if the quality leaves a lot to be desired, simply making something from nothing is a reality now. Aspiring filmmakers can fulfill their artistic vision in such a wide array of methods involving film and it’s a beautiful thing.
This belief of making your movie however you can is present in One Cut of the Dead, yet there’s something sobering about the story that doesn’t feel as genuine in other films about the film industry. Yes, the cast and crew are able to finish the film and broadcast it live without stopping, but the journey to get there sheds light on the true difficulties of amateur filmmaking. The film is nearly ruined on multiple occasions thanks to untimely circumstances, a car collision that leads to a last-minute casting for two characters, and a whole bevy of on-set fuckups that would make any director pull their hair out in stress and frustration.
Not stopping there, the behind-the-camera crew are shown to work their asses off throughout the entire film, with the original Director of Photography blowing out his back mid-way through filming, the make-up and effects artists having to work around indisposed and improvising actors, and even one of the film’s producers gets his hands dirty by the end. Having to perform in real-time is obviously more stressful than shooting the movie in privacy, but the film pulls no punches with how hard everybody on set works to make the film look as refined as can be.
Is the final product perfect? No, far from it in fact. The plot holes and inconsistencies remain present throughout the finished film, but the added context invites us to look beyond the film itself and witness a cacophony of mistakes forcing the crew to improvise and use their brains in an unexpected manner. In the end, the zombie TV movie is flawed, but ambitious and good enough to satisfy the TV executives financing the production. There’s even a bittersweet moment where the main executive lady proudly proclaims that the movie went off without any trouble, clearly oblivious to the hard work put in by the crew. It’s an attempt at ironic humor, but her reaction symbolizes the general population’s own subconscious disregard for the hard work that we do not see.
Though this disregard is made clear with the executive’s final lines in the film, One Cut of the Dead doesn’t aim to end things off on a bittersweet note. The featurette-ish zombie comedy is all about the idea of preserving your vision through hard work, quick thinking, and passion. The film doesn’t shy away from showing how difficult it will get while making a movie, but the cast and crew’s elated response to their miraculous success is euphoric and satisfying. No words are needed as the crew simply lies back and take it all in. Imperfect, yes, but they made a movie in one go and they are ultimately proud of what they’ve made.
With amateur filmmaking being more prevalent now than before, One Cut of the Dead lends itself into that field with a charming honesty that isn’t always found in movies about movies. Everything I just described was all done for $25,000 and its schlocky appeal puts it above any polished high-budget horror film with no passion behind it. With intentionally bad acting in the first 40 minutes and a cheesy atmosphere to it, One Cut of the Dead almost seemed destined to be another case of an indie film getting swept under the rug and buried by more highly-regarded content.
But the film’s heart and joyful attitude towards filmmaking is just infectious enough for people to resonate with. Having ascended beyond Japan, the film has enjoyed a new resurgence thanks to its debut on Shudder on September 24. This love letter to filmmaking has clearly connected with a wider audience than expected, but with a film as inspiring as this one, it’s not much of a surprise in hindsight. People love a good underdog story and One Cut of the Dead, in both fiction and reality, is the ultimate underdog that came out on top.