£40
Colin isn't your traditional zombie
movie. It doesn't tell a tale of how the world got infected, nor does
it chronicle the escape of a group of survivors. It follows the
titular character, Colin. That's it. It literally follows him.
There's no heartfelt story or gritty tale, we just see what happens
to Colin after he gets bitten. You wanna know what happens to him?
SPOILER
He goes for a walk. That pretty much
sums it up.
I can safely say I've never seen or
even heard of a zombie flick picking a single zombie out of hundreds
and following him around for 90 minutes doing mundane things such as
eating peoples noses or getting your face blown off. There are so
many things I want to say about this film, but I'm not sure where to
start, or even how to say it.
I guess I'll start with the actors.
There are a lot of unknowns here. This is because they worked for
free, so no A-Listers will be appearing. To me, most of the cast
seemed quite amateur. Whether this was because they weren't
professional actors, I don't know. What I do know is that in some
strange way, it worked. It gave the film an authentic feel that you
don't see very often due to heavily edited scripts and decades of
acting school. There was a gritty air about it that reflected on how
I believe Joe Public would react in the same situation. None of this
'instantly an expert with a weapon I just found', but timid swipes
with pots or umbrellas.
SFX. For such a low budget, I think the
special effects paid off. Even with the dodgy lighting, it didn't
look obviously fake, and at times, convincing.
Shaky-cam. The documentary style of
filming added another interesting element, once again solidifying the
feel of the 'normal'.
Story. Although you could argue that
following Colin on his shamble-tastic adventure IS the story, I found
it a little boring as there was no real set up to what the film was
about. I kept wondering when the action would kick in or when
something, ANYTHING, would happen.
The over-stayed welcome. There were a
few scenes that played out for far too long. There is a scene about
half way in that shows a group of people stuck in a house with
makeshift weapons defending themselves from hordes of the undead. For
5 whole minutes. That's right, for 300 whole seconds, we are
presented with nothing but screaming and moaning while the same
repetitive motions are played out on screen.
And finally, Colin. Our hero. When he
turns, he still is very... human-like. He has human-like qualities.
We see quizzical looks on his face, he recognizes things, which
brings up the question – do zombies remember their past lives?
That's a question for another time though. The way Alastair Kirton
played him, it was almost like he had reverted the character back to
a baby, seeing everything for the first time again. One other thing I
noticed, and this could be applied to all the zombies I guess, was
how animalistic they were. There were more roars and snarls than
groans, and there was anger showing more so than the urge to feed.
£40. That's how much it cost to make
the entire film. £40.
I don't think this would appeal to the
'Hollywood Undead', but to more of an indie film school. 2 and a half
road signs out of 5
