Decades later, I still consider myself one of the biggest zombie fans in the business. From everything George Romero had ever directed to almost everything in both the comics and TV series of The Walking Dead, you put a zombie in something and I’ll likely watch your movie, write about it, and take the opportunity to talk about it. Hell, I’ll even do a Joel and Ellie marketing pamphlet on the benefits of survivor apocalypse training for take your daughter to work day.
Which is why Final Cut seems like the most intriguing film seen in the genre in quite a while. Considered a zombie comedy, this trailer for the American release of Final Cut is actually a remake of One Cut of the Dead and follows the harrowingly silly adventure when avant-garde filmmaking goes wrong.
The story is actually a tale about a director (Romain Duris, L’Auberge Espagnole) who gets charged with making a live, single-take, low-budget zombie flick in which the cast and crew, one by one, actually turn into zombies. All in an homage to low-budget DIY filmmaking and a love for genre filmmaking.
“In Final Cut, there are several types of comedy, both completely absurd and more sophisticated stuff,” said director Michel Hazanavicius about how he came up with the concept during the first pandemic lockdown. “I tried to make a rich, generous film, in which the viewer is involved. I always try to make films that can be watched over again.”
To add meta-layers of complexity, Hazanavicius has actually included both his own wife and daughter in the movie, who are, ironically playing… the ‘in-movie’ director’s wife and daughter. To make matters even more complicated, the film is by all means the story of a film-within-a-film and how the zombies within become all too real of a situational mess.
You can checkout the film’s trailer below. Available July 14th, 2023.
