Portrait of a Zombie

The first few minutes were promising: the documentary tone and the determined family looking after their zombie son seemed to set up a coming apocalypse or at least brutal family tragedy.

Well, we did get that tragedy and apocalypse yet nothing about the 'film' changed...it continued its boring-as-hell documentary style, sometimes switched to 'cinema' style (tho' it was filmed exactly the same way).

Lots of things wrong with this utter waste of time:

• people talking into the camera, constantly, is simply dull.

• no sense of how to use music...it was all over the place.

• very poor sound effects. As with the music there's no UMMFF!

• roly-poly choreography. Your average kid playfights with more conviction than the 'fight' scenes offered up here.

• cheap-looking zombie masks...you see better at Halloween parties.

• no sense of drama or pacing at all. Certainly no sense of horror.

• the attempts at humour probably looked witty on paper, but it just didn't work. It was all too self-aware.

• extremely poor camera work & uninspired lighting. Random focus and constant irritating shaking to hide the lumbering 'action'. I use cameras myself and could've guaranteed a more engrossing experience: you need to consider the angles, lighting, choreography and timing the camera movements, not to mention solid sound mixing and editing.

• the one single attempt at shock-gore fell so awfully flat.

• the only definable character was the mother, and she was only playing a two-dimensional mother archetype.

The actors themselves displayed at least a modicum of ability, certainly competent enough to be in a far better film, but there were too many of them. The 'gangster' characters were especially pointless.

For a budget of 100k you can do a lot more, better to go for less cheapo make-up and fewer cast members, and focus on the cinematography with a good editor. See "Rammbock", which had a similar budget.. It's not great but good enough to showcase directorial talent for future projects.

1 point for the idea, but there's nothing else to score it, making this probably my only 1/10 film, and teaching me a valuable lesson not to impulse-buy titles I've never heard of from the cheap bins.

This film was a great example of what you can do with great talent and a small budget. The carraavgio coloration, the actors fanstastic performances and the directors skillful look combined with a very witty narrative made this film a unique and entertaining experience I thoroughly enjoyed

It should be said that the approach to the zombie genre seen in "Portrait of a Zombie" is indeed new and innovative. However, that doesn't necessarily make it great.

The movie had potential, and if it had a bigger budget the movie would indeed have been so much more than it was. I must say that "Portrait of a Zombie" turned out to be a rather ambitious amateurish project. But it was still enjoyable enough for what it was - and for what it turned out to be.

The storyline in "Portrait of a Zombie" is about a family that have a zombie at home, their son Billy. The neighborhood is in uproar and the family still treats him as being alive and still being their son.

Story-wise, then there were aspects to the story that were alright, but in overall, it wasn't memorable.

What really needed more detail, work and better execution was the make-up and effects of the zombies. It was basically just make-up added to people's faces, and of course they committed the ultimate flaw here; forgetting about the neck and ears. So the face had make-up and special effects applied, while the neck and ears were left in proper skin tones. It is just such a bad mistake to make.

The gun effects in the movie were just atrocious, and the movie would have fared so much better if they had opted not to have guns in the movie at all. If you are going to do guns, at least have them done right.

And the way that Billy was moving just didn't go well with me, it looked like a crippled duck trying to dance break-dance. It was just awful.

The acting in the movie was actually good, given what the actors and actresses had to work with.

But for a movie of this production value, I will still applaud director Bing Bailey for managing to get this on its feet and turn it into what it was. If you enjoy zombie movies, then "Portrait of a Zombie" is definitely worth watching a single time, because of its unique approach to the zombie genre. However, just don't get your hopes up for a next Romero movie in the making.

I seen this at the opening of the Underground Cinema film festival last week – I believe it won and I am not surprised. It's a mock documentary with a twisted sense of humor about a film crew from the US documenting the day to day life of a family in Dublin whose eldest son is a zombie. Its like Shaun of the Dead meets Spinal Tap only a whole lot grittier (is that a word?).

Some of the scenes take the zombie theme to a whole new level – for me anyway. Although its an independent movie the characters are very well developed especially the father – when he speaks his heart to the camera – the mother (mothers believe in their children but not usually to this extent – you have to see this) & the American in charge of the film crew – excellent. I also liked the Zombie's younger brother and how his issues were almost like that standard older brother/younger brother dynamic.

Very creative & enjoyable and I would guess a cert 15 if not 18… enjoy.

An American film maker documents the daily life of Billy the zombie and his family in working class Dublin during a zombie outbreak. For a start these zombie apocalypse movies have been done to death - and then some! It became boring years ago for me. But at least here there is a slightly new spin on the sub-genre. This is a very low budget movie so obviously this must be taken into account when reviewing. The acting varies from acceptable (Billy's parents) to dire (female character known as AD, I think she is meant to be an American but clearly is incapable of hiding her Irish accent!). Despite being in the midst of an apocalypse the budget obviously did not stretch to any military or police presence, it is down to local gangsters played by bad actors to save the non-infected!! The gory make-up was pretty decent and the film has an effective musical score, how many movies can boast musicians "Slow News Day in the Vampire World" on their credits?? Don't get me wrong, the film makers did a reasonable job considering the low budget and obviously lack of talent, but these rave reviews should be taken with a large dose of salt! I certainly could not give this a repeat viewing.