Premise: An indie film crew is tasked with filming a zombie movie in one unbroken cut.
I’m going to give my increasingly common warning that this is a movie that’s best to go into unaware of what it is. Not because it is big on twists; rather a lot of why I loved this movie was because I let it surprise me and win me over. So, consider this my enthusiastic thumbs up and your last warning before I talk openly about the movie.
This film is broken into three parts, and it is so much fun finding that out while watching it. The first part is a bad 30-minute found-footage zombie movie. I watched this part thoroughly unimpressed. I’d heard great things about this movie; how it was made cheaply and overachieved so much. Despite how bad the movie was, I at least appreciated what appeared to be an authentic single-take. There didn’t appear to be clever editing. This really seemed to be done in a single take.
Then, 30-minutes in, there are closing credits. The film jumps back a month and reveals that what I just watched was the end product of as a live, single-take film commissioned by a TV station. The second act introduces all the actors and crew on the movie. It gives the background for them and the plan. I’ll admit, even this wasn’t doing much for me. It felt like lazy studio and filmmaking commentary. I still wasn’t getting why this movie was so praised.
Finally, I got to the third act where it all came together. That’s when it shows everything that was going on while the film from the first-act was playing out. Suddenly, all the odd pauses, strange acting choices, and narrative inconsistencies all made sense. Everything from the drunk actor throwing up to the director’s wife getting way too into her role started paying off wonderfully. I can’t think of the last time a movie won me over so much by the end after losing me so early.
Verdict: Strongly Recommend
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