CUT
Cut is an Australian slasher film and gosh I wish it was more fun. There are so very few Aussie slashers, and Cut’s premise is that absolutely classic slasher premise (see: Scream 3 or Urban Legends: Final Cut) of a bunch of young people who are making a slasher film of their own. The film is filled with characters who reference other horror movies. Imagine if it was good! God. Would have loved that.
It’s not. Not really. It’s fine. It’s sort of fun. But not quite. It’s directed by Kimble Rendall, whose career is pretty indicative of how working in the Australian arts is just kind of doing whatever you can to keep being a creative. He was in Hoodoo Gurus for a little bit, he made music videos, he was a second unit director on the Matrix sequels and I, Robot, and he directed Cut and Bait 3D.
Cut appears on plenty of ‘Best Australian Horror Movies’ lists but that’s mostly because those lists are always an arbitrary number in length and after about seven or so films they need some movies on the list to fill up the space.
The cast is good. Jessica Napier is the star, and Stephen Curry’s in it because it was made in 2000 and back then it was the law to include Stephen Curry in your movie. Cut also features a Kylie Minogue cameo and absolutely wastes Molly Ringwald as an American actor starring in an Australian film. And while Ringwald’s appearance should be a pretty funny comment about how Australian films will often try to shoehorn in a no longer famous American actor, but instead of satirizing that concept it more just is that. It’s a no longer famous American actor being shoehorned into an Australian film.
Where would I fit into Cut? Well, I would have absolutely loved to have been making a horror movie, especially back then in the year 2000. I would have been seventeen and absolutely buzzing at the very idea of it. I think I would fit right in with the rest of these characters spouting some on the nose comments about other movies right up until the point my head gets chopped off.
IF I WERE IN ‘CUT’ I WOULD: BE DEAD BUT LATER USED AS A REFERENCE IN A SNARKY HORROR MOVIE FROM, SAY, 2012 WHERE THE MAIN CHARACTERS ALL WORK AT THE LAST VIDEO STORE IN TOWN AND ONE BY ONE THEY START BEING KILLED OFF AND ONE OF THEM SAYS SOMETHING LIKE “THIS IS JUST LIKE CUT” AND ANOTHER ONE SAYS “BAGS NOT BEING THE PETER JONES” AND THEN THE FIRST ONE SAYS “SORRY YOU’RE DEFINITELY THE PETER JONES” AND THEN THEY LAUGH AND START TO LEAVE THE ROOM AND AT THAT MOMENT THE KILLER APPEARS AND CHOPS THEIR HEAD OFF, IN MUCH THE SAME WAY THAT MY HEAD WAS CHOPPED OFF IN ‘CUT’ THUS MAKING THEM THE ‘PETER JONES’ OF THE MOVIE.
