Colin

This is one of those rare films which I believe every serious zombie enthusiast needs to see. Now, that is not to say that every zombie fan will necessarily like it. But what it offers is a unique look at life (for want of a better word) from the zombie's point-of-view. On that note, I found it to be original, artistic and very well thought out. For those reasons I certainly understand some of the positive comments from other reviewers. That said however, I also understand some of the negative comments too. Obviously being a low-budget production it suffers accordingly. None of the actors or actresses were known to me and other than Daisy Aitkens (as Colin's sister, "Linda") none of them had any dialogue worth mentioning anyway. Even so, I thought the lead actor, Alastair Kirton ("Colin") performed in an excellent manner all the same. Unfortunately, the camera work was quite often shaky, in some cases the lighting was bad and other than Colin there really wasn't much character development. Additionally, some of the scenes were extremely slow and dragged on way too long while others could have been cut with little (if any) noticeable effect on the final product. Along with that, some of the special effects (i.e. gore) should have either been improved upon or eliminated all together. In short, this was a zombie film that definitely needed to be made. And while I seriously doubt the production costs listed in IMDb (of $70) are true, I will say that if it had even one-tenth of the money allocated to "World War Z" it could have been one of the best zombie films ever made. Sadly, this was not the case and while I believe the director (Marc Price) has every reason to be proud of his efforts, I still have to factor in some of the negative variables I mentioned earlier in my overall rating. Having said that, although I believe this film has a definite place in the zombie legacy, I rate it as slightly below average.

All of the recent coverage of this film in the mainstream print press has inspired the expectation in many (myself very much included) that it has somehow transcended its origins as a film that cost 40 quid to make. It hasn't.

Looking exactly as you'd expect a £40 zombie movie to look (replete with a complete disregard for cinematography, alarmingly hammy acting and plenty of unconvincing, off- colour bloodletting) Colin is an extraordinarily hard slog. This is particularly true of its opening half hour, which is almost totally bereft of dialogue and filled with way too many ugly and aimless shots that last at least four or five times longer than they need to, without any justification.

Despite the odd moderately impressive exterior shot, Colin's "story" is one constructed around the constant need to justify the shooting locations - which are all, for the vast majority of the time, someone's drab and under-lit living room. The finale, which bucks this trend by taking place in someone's garden, is five utterly exhausting minutes of ketchup, shaky-cam and non-stop shouting; the sheer, belligerent pointlessness of which angered me so much that I almost flung a shoe through my TV.

Spades of kudos must go to the enterprising young sprouts who clearly worked like dogs to get this film made, and I'm thrilled to live in an age where filmmakers of this level can get their work seen and distributed nationally on DVD, but to be brutally honest this is film-making of an extremely sloppy vintage, and the complete lack of plot renders it monumentally, deadeningly boring.

A friend of mine remarked that he'd rather sit down in front of a decade's worth of his neighbour's holiday videos than sit through Colin again.

Ditto.

Just to clear up two points that are repeated ad infinitum: 1 - it's not the first zombie movie shown from the zombies POV. 2 - it's not the first zombie movie to make the zombie empathetic.

Both these points were first done by George Romero. In 'Land of the Dead' one of the core story lines was zombies recognizing they were being attacked and moving towards the human settlement. Again in 'Land of the Dead', and also 'Dawn...' and 'Day of the Dead' there was a recognisably empathic portrayal of the pilot in 'Dawn'(when he turned) and Bub in 'Day'.

There's no doubt that 'Colin' is well done if the statements about the budget are correct - there are some very good aspects to the movie: the soundtrack/score; some of the make up and effects; some the acting.

But this movie is really an extended student film, the cinematography is awful, the editing is okay as long as there is no more than 1 or 2 actors in scene, any more than that and it's very difficult to work out what's going on.

Not to denigrate the efforts of the director, cast and crew - but this is an idea of a movie and should be seen almost as a showreel than a finished product.

Colin (Alastair Kirton) arrives at his friend's home holding a hammer and covered in blood. He washes a savage wound in his arm before being attacked by his friend, now one of the undead. Colin kills the zombie before slowly turning into one himself. Once turned, Colin embarks on a journey of discovery amongst an apparent zombie apocalypse. He finds a taste for human flesh but rarely attacks. He is mugged for his trainers before being rescued by his sister, who he then mindlessly bites. We then follow Colin across a chaotic city, where the humans seem to be more savage than the zombies.

The story of Colin is really quite remarkable. Apparently made for £45, director Marc Price shot the film on a ten-year old camcorder and used social network sites to gather willing actors. When screened at various horror festivals, the film attracted the attention of various production companies and Colin went onto having a limited cinema release. When Danny Boyle released 28 Days Later (2002) and re-invented zombies as fast, scary and fuelled by rage (rather than a taste for flesh), the zombie genre was given a new lease of life. Even zombie legend George A. Romero got back in the game and made the okay Land of the Dead (2005). They are still as popular now as they were back then, and the straight- to-video market especially is plagued by them. It has become slightly tiresome and formulaic. The success of Colin stems from the fact that it does something wholly original and tells the story from the zombie's point of view.

Colin admittedly looks terrible - but when you shoot a film for the same price as a video game then that can certainly be forgiven. This is by no means a great film, but it's certainly interesting, and has some inspired moments. In the early scenes, Colin wanders the streets and finds some building blocks which he eyes with recognition and confusion, and later finds an iPod which he listens to for a while before discarding. It adds new dimensions to the zombie which makes a nice change from seeing them being blasted away (although that is also fun). The camera-work can certainly be irritating, as sometimes it's hard to work out what is actually happening, but again, this can be forgiven. I'll be interested to see what Price goes on to do after this, as he's made the most likable and sympathetic zombie since Day of the Dead's (1985) Bub.

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You can tell they only had a forty quid budget ... worth a watch tho! Just don't the forty quid budget! I gave up Parasite to watch it! Always tomorrow night I guess!