Colin

"Colin" is an amazing achievement, given its shoestring budget. Marc Price's ambitious independent and original zombie film shows us proceedings through the undead's perspective (the role of Colin played by Alastair Kirton).

This is a genuinely moving film which contains a number of unforgettable scenes. Taking the genre beyond mere blood and guts (but there are plenty of juicy entrails and examples of body dismemberment on display to keep the gorehound's interest fixed on the proceedings), "Colin" is a thought provoking, rather tragic, movie.

7 out of 10. Recommended viewing. Price shows genuine talent and it will be interesting to see where he takes the viewer next.

Made for £45, my arse! This film's laundry bill alone would have amounted to more than that (fake blood doesn't come out of clothes by itself, you know), let alone all the other costs that are unavoidably incurred during the film-making process, no matter how cheap the production: catering, administration, travel, make-up supplies etc.

Sadly, Colin's clever '£45' marketing ploy turns out to be the most effective thing about the whole film. Despite a valiant attempt to try something different with the whole living-dead schtick, and for seriously less dosh than most low-budget horrors, most of the time the film proves to be a less than scintillating experience, the basic idea being far more suitable to a 10 minute short than a 97 minute feature.

Watching recently turned corpse Colin (Alastair Kirton) slowly dragging his feet around South London for an hour and a half, pausing to contemplate road signs or traffic lights on the way, is pretty dreary stuff. Director Marc Price occasionally picks up the pace, such as when Colin stumbles upon a house siege or a group of survivors take action against the undead (resulting in a unsettling scene where those wounded during the battle are cruelly dispatched before they can become zombies), but for the majority of the time, this is dead boring.

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.

I was lucky enough to catch a screening of this movie at the Sci-fi Oktoberfest at the Apollo Cinema in central London. It was the first movie in a zombie quadruple-bill, an all night gorefest. Quite frankly I was expecting this unknown low-budget horror to be as awful as it sounded, but it actually turned out to be the best movie of the night in many ways. The director and main star of the film were both in attendance, and I had a chance to congratulate Marc Price on creating a damn fine little movie on what was clearly a shoestring budget.

Let's get the downsides out of the way first. The ultra-low budget really does hurt the film. The camera-work and lighting are the biggest victims, in that what might have been intended as a naturalistic documentary style is actually just a mess of incredibly shaky video footage. Marc Price admitted that he was unhappy with the dark/night scenes as they were still perhaps a bit too dark. On the plus side, the sounds and music are very well done and they manage to carry the sometimes dodgy visuals.

The real lure of this film however, is the the story. Rather than explaining the hows, the whats and the whys of this particular zombie apocalypse, it simply focuses on a single zombie and follows his shambling journey from death to undeath while civilisation comes to a grinding halt in the background. Other movies in the genre have the zombies as a faceless horde of implacable eating machines, but "Colin" plucks one half-eaten face from the crowd and makes him a highly believable character. I never thought this would happen, but I felt genuine empathy for Colin at times. As he shuffles around a London that is collapsing in upon itself, various groups of human survivors cross his path offering snapshots of other untold stories that are occurring at the same time. There is the man being slowly and quietly eaten to death, the group of grim-faced zombie-hunters, the man with a secret in his cellar, the grieving sister ... every one of these stories gives hints of the wider chaos that must be going on, making this a very believable, and very English, zombie uprising.

This is a film that absolutely deserves to be seen by a wider audience. I can only hope that a distribution company picks it up and ensures that it gets a full release in the same way that other low budget films like Blair Witch Project and Open Water did. Ideally, I'd like to see a studio offer Marc Price the money to make a shot for shot remake but with professional level equipment. The story is very strong, it seems that even zombies can have a character arc and a sense of purpose, and there are so many clever ideas in both the script and the execution. There are some moments of subtle humour, lashings of blood, and at least one moment that was genuinely terrifying. I'm greatly looking forward to seeing more work from this novice director, there is real talent on display here. It might look low budget, but script- wise this is as strong as anything being released by the major studios.

If you have ever enjoyed a good zombie film, then do seek out "Colin" because it is truly a fine example of the genre. It's quite literally a film for people with braiiiiiiiiins.

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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