'One Cut Of The Dead' Trailer: The Year's Best Zombie Comedy Is Finally Coming To The U.S.

In 2017, Shinichirou Ueda's cleverly subversive zombie movie One Cut of the Dead hit Japanese theaters. It instantly became a box office sensation, grossing over a thousand times its budget and earning a nomination for Best Picture at the Japanese equivalent of the Oscars. It was a festival circuit darling, amassing raves from critics. A glitzy international release was a given. But two years later, we've heard mostly crickets Stateside. The film's marketing-resistant twist might have been the biggest obstacle, as was Amazon Prime's botched bootleg release last year.

But like an undead zombie rising from its grave, One Cut of the Dead is back with a vengeance. The Shudder streaming service came to the rescue, picking up the film and setting the zombie comedy for its long-awaited U.S. release this September. Watch the U.S. One Cut of the Dead trailer below.

It's hard to rave about what makes One Cut of the Dead so damn good without giving away its big spoiler, but trust me when I say that this Japanese zombie comedy is much more than its basic premise. One Cut of the Dead follows a filmmaking crew making a low-budget zombie film in an abandoned warehouse who soon discover that zombies are actually coming to life around them. It's slow and weird and schlocky...at first. After the first 30 minutes, One Cut of the Dead takes a breathtaking turn that transforms it into one of the best zombie movies of this decade. There's much that's been debated about the state of spoiler culture today, but One Cut of the Dead is a movie that requires you to go into it without knowing anything about it. And don't worry, the above trailer doesn't give too much away.

Written, directed, and edited by Shinichiro Ueda, and starring Takayuki Hamatsu, Mao, Harumi Shuhama, Yuzuki Akiyama, Kazuaki Nagaya, and Manabu Hosoi, One Cut of the Dead is a hilarious, endlessly inventive, and completely enthralling zombie comedy that stands up there with Shaun of the Dead.

Here is the official synopsis for One Cut of the Dead:

While shooting a low-budget zombie film in an abandoned warehouse, the crew find themselves caught between actual zombies and a mad director who won't stop rolling. If you think you know what happens next, think again. Filmmaker Shinichiro Ueda turns the film on its head more than once for one of the wildest, funniest, and most surprising zombie movies of all time.

Shudder, in association with theatrical partner Variance Films, is bringing One Cut of the Dead to select theaters in New York at the IC Center and LA at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown on September 13, 2019, with over 60 one-night screenings across the U.S. and Canada slated for September 17, 2019 with additional screenings to follow. One Cut of the Dead will then stream Shudder.