Final Cut Review

September 27, 2022 at 6:55pm
By Jason Stettner

This is actually a rather interesting and very different take on the zombie genre of film. It follows a film crew that’s attempting to make a zombie movie while the undead descends upon them. Or at least that’s how things are framed from the start. There’s actually a lot more complexity here than just that.

It’s somewhat hard to review in that sense since I want to keep things a mystery as the whole reveal situation here is probably half the fun of the experience. At the start, or at least for about the first half hour you’re seeing this all roll out in motion. You see a crazed director, you see them filming these actors dealing with zombies.

It’s quite disjointed, comical and at times bizarre in presentation. It’s still very funny and straight up weird. To the point I thought I accidently booked a short film. Then a major shift happens that I thought was weird until you start to see where they’re headed with the concept and perhaps that part of it was even more funny to witness.

This one certainly has a distinct visual style to it. When you’re watching the filmed portion it paints a picture of those older campy type shoots with certain levels of grain and weird coloring. There are also lots of just regularly shot moments as well, it’s a mix that works well.

Most things were well framed for hilarity, particularly in how everything lines up as you continue to watch the movie reveal itself. The acting was solid, with the awkward moments and comedy delivered well.

Despite being longer the pacing is also generally quite solid throughout, just with the brief tonal shift taking a little to get fully used to. This is also a French film so you may be reading subtitles to engage with it which was fine. The gore was very well done, as was how the gore was done. It’s just the layers on this one work ever so greatly together.

The Conclusion

Final Cut is rather hilarious, filled with some silly stand out moments that display the craze of trying to put together a film from behind the scenes. There’s also strangely quite a bit of heart there once you reach the latter portion.

It brings some laughs, awkwardness that works perfectly for what they’re trying to convey and it’s generally just an entertaining time. I’m not sure if everyone would love this style of humor perhaps, but it definitely worked for me.

Despite there being some pauses of thinking what exactly is going on here in a weird way, it really does come together in a rather satisfying style once everything goes along. By the end I certainly had my laughs and left with a good feeling from what was provided.

Final Cut Review at Theater with Standard Viewing during Calgary Film Festival
Screening Provided by Calgary Film

Rating Overall: 8.2