I finally got around to watching this movie a few years late, in my ongoing quest to watch every relevant movie that exists about zombies. In reality, as anyone who has seen this movie knows, it isn't really about zombies, but I think that the Cinema Philosophers among us would say that zombie movies are never actually about zombies, except when they miss the point and become really bad (not naming any names, but Brad Pitt drinks a lot of Pepsi in one).

What this movie is actually about is the most popular topics in filmmaking: filmmaking. One Cut of the Dead would seem extremely masturbatory and self-indulgent if it as a Hollywood movie - I don't think I'd be able to stand it - but it isn't a Hollywood movie. It is an actual low-budget film ($25k in total in 2017 dollars!) made overseas, and that somehow makes all the difference. It doesn't feel like self-worship so much as it is about the struggle and reward of art. I'm not really an artist myself, so in some ways I probably don't get it, but I still enjoyed it. It is certainly a very original film despite having what I just described as one of the most popular premises in non-blockbuster movies.

Another mildly interesting thing to me is that everyone describes this as a "comedy" and there are some jokes I suppose, but they really aren't particularly funny for the most part. There are overt low-brow jokes ("haha poop" style) that are almost anti-comedy at this point, but the actual funny parts aren't those, the humor is all tied into the subtle references that are probably pretty rewarding to a second viewing, if I didn't have the attention span of a shrimp. If I was trying to sell a fan of comedy on this movie, I would have a hard time, because it is definitely NOT Shaun of the Dead. Its heart is not in being Funny, but in the exuberance of the creative process.

Score: 8/10

IMDb: One Cut of the Dead

PS: It's been a long time since I watched this and posted this, the first review of this project. I think back on this movie more fondly than almost any of them, even though I never really directly recommend it to anyone when people ask for movie suggestions. There's something about it that I truly love but which I just don't feel confident would transfer to everyone. It's an incredibly short review, also, from before I grew more pointlessly verbose. I think that I'd probably have a lot more to say about it today.