I was shown the first 5 minutes of this film in one of my A-level film classes. To this day I have no memory as to why, but bizarrely I remembered seeing the clip itself. Maybe we got shown it to show you can make a film on a tiny budget, but honestly, I can't remember for the life of me. It is mostly unimportant as to why I was shown it, I just like to go on tangents in these introductions and so thought I would keep that up. Well anyway, with these lockdown reviews in full flow I felt it was a good time to revisit this and see just why a zombie film made for a supposed £45 was noteworthy enough to show 16-year-old film students. The film follows the titular Colin (Alastair Kirton) who has been bitten by a zombie. He soon turns into one of the creatures and we follow him in zombie form as he wanders the streets of London. He soon bumps into his sister, Linda (Daisy Aitkens) who saves him from being killed by two people. Convinced she can save Colin she captures him and takes him to their mother's house to see if she can make him remember who he was.
I saw a lot of people when reviewing this film saying 'A for effort but nothing else'. I do see where these people are coming from and I do somewhat agree with them, but I also feel like that is a very harsh assessment of what is an ambitious and interesting film, even if it doesn't quite stick. Let's start by looking at the negative aspects of the film. Firstly, the acting is pretty shoddy. I mean of course, it is. this is the lowest of low budget horror films and so I wasn't expecting incredible performances but if I'm pointing out negatives I have to point this out. Secondly, the technical side of this film is hit and miss. A lot of the time it was fine and I almost forgot I was watching a film shot entirely on an old camcorder, but then there were also a lot of times where the shaky cam was almost unbearable, especially during the action scenes where I struggled to make out what was going on. The lighting in the film is also really poor. It is understandable as to why, shooting in natural light always has its issues, but this excuse doesn't make it any better. There are times where the film is so poorly lit that you can barely make out what you're looking at and other times the film is so overexposed that you have the same problem. The biggest problem the film has is its narrative or lack of. The synopsis that I wrote for the film is about as much of a narrative as you can grasp in the film, and even this is resolved after an hour leaving half an hour with no narrative to cling to at all. The film instead has Colin wandering scene to scene without any throughline tying them together. We effectively see 6 or 7 small narratives attached, with Colin being involved only in his presence. This lack of any real narrative means that it is impossible to emotionally invest with any of the characters because there aren't really any. Colin is the only consistent character and he is barely present in the majority of scenes. The film feels like it is desperate to hit the 90-minute mark and drags as a result. This would have made a very effective 30 minute short, but as a feature-length it just doesn't work.
So yes, as I have shown above, this film is not very good. That being said there are aspects of the film that I do like. I know I just spent a good chunk of my review shitting on the narrative, but there are aspects of it I like. The fact that we see the film from the perspective of a zombie, although not new, is an interesting way to tell your story. It also allows the film to have some genuinely human moments. The film hits quite well on an emotional level, and I think these moments would have been super effective within a stronger narrative. The effects in the film are also very good for the budget of the film. There are a couple of moments where the gore effects look a little on the cheap side, but on the whole, they are very good. There a couple of moments of gore that I enjoyed, one involving legs and one involving teeth. Both were done very well and while the prior shocked me, the latter genuinely made me cringe. The aspect of the film I appreciated most was the ambitious directing style. Going on I thought the film was going to be very much a standard film with no real style to it but I was proven wrong. The director clearly has skill and was not afraid to try things. This does lead to some dodgy moments but also leads to some great sequences. The most notable of these is when Colin is turning into a zombie. I really, really enjoyed this scene The the effects, the sound, and the editing all work in tandem to create an effective and enjoyable sequence and I have to tip my hat to the director.
I have now finally seen 'Colin' 7 or so years after being first introduced to it and it is not exactly what I expected. I expected it to be a cheap-looking film with a run of the mill zombie narrative and this is not the case. It does often look very cheap but has its moments where it completely outshines its budget and although the narrative doesn't work on the whole it is at least an interesting take on the genre. Yeah the film isn't very good, but it is ambitious and much better than it probably had any right to be. If you have an interest in filmmaking then it is probably worth a watch just to see some of the things you can achieve on a tiny budget. However, if you're looking for a film to entertain you then I'm afraid this isn't it.