Colin Movie Review

Vivid proof that filmmaking is more about creativity than money, this micro-budget British movie takes an inventive approach to the ubiquitous zombie genre. It's rough around the edges, but is surprisingly fresh and engaging.

Colin (Kirton) is horrified by the snarling gangs of undead prowling the streets of London. But he's also been bitten, so soon goes through a nasty transformation. After managing to get out of his flat, he can't resist the urge to bite anyone who's still alive. He's rescued from a gang of zombie-bashers by his sister (Aitkens), but when she's bitten too, Colin continues on a quest to find his girlfriend (Pammen) and perhaps some form of redemption.

Filmmaker Price claims he made this film for U45, which seems like an understatement since the buckets of fake blood and grisly make-up effects alone are surely worth more than that. But the point is that by using handheld cameras and a remarkably adept cast, he achieves something many big-budget movies can't: he keeps us completely gripped to the story as it develops. And this is mainly because we've never seen a zombie movie that depends on emotional engagement with someone like Colin.

In addition to Kirton's superb performance, Price uses clever camera angles, a textured sound mix (including lots of bone-crunching), subtle special effects and telling cutaways instead of dialog to propel us into the situation. And the streets are impressively packed with either zombies or zombie-fighters, including a news crew covering the story. We watch all of this from Colin's perspective, which puts us right into the situations and cleverly inverts classic zombie-movie cliches.

Each situation Colin stumbles into is inventively twisted by the point of view.
A crowd of ravenous undead in a small room is like a zombie rave, Colin's sister's attempt to help him feels like an intervention, being locked in a garden shed feels oddly elegiac, and an extended flashback gives Colin an emotional inner life. Even if some of the events are rather confusing and there's a bit too much shaky camera work, Price's persistent resourcefulness is a joy to watch, especially as he so effectively generates scenes of mass chaos and carnage without ever resorting to Hollywood-style overkill. As it were.