FrightFest Special | Colin | Dir: Marc Price | 90mins

There was a lot of hype surrounding this movie – its most predominant feature being the figure quoted of £45 as its production cost. Doubtful, but according to anecdote, there was a lot done for free, borrowed, highjacked and the actors all took part from an ad on Facebook.

Is the infamous budget true? If it is – does it show? ‘Colin’ is an overlong and often tedious film that most of the audience at the ‘Fest agreed could well have been made 30mins shorter (which would have shortened its budget to £30). Too little story and too little money made for a dull watch at that length, but the movie nonetheless had plenty of merit that will, no doubt, catapult it into Cult Movie Territory PDQ.

Marc Price had showed this at Cannes and it was well received enough to sell out its two showings in Leicester Square to an excited Marc. ‘You are the real audience of this film – if you don’t like it, we are fucked.’ Is what he said as him and the main lead, Alistair Kirton introduced the film. He told of the second hand film he got by accident and how the movie was essentially Marc, with Alistair and a camcorder. There was a lot more to it than that. Any English (UK) zombie movie in a modern urban context is going to be inevitably compared to Shaun of the Dead and 28 Days Later. Does ‘Colin’ stand proud alongside its co-patriot undead efforts? In a word, ‘yes.’ One of the most original aspects of this film, is the morphing process, which we are far more used to seeing in werewolf outings than zombie movies.

The transition from human to undead, covering the agonising emotional realisation, is closely followed by denial, then shutdown, then reawakening. At the beginning, Colin has just been bitten – in a desperate attempt to reverse the process, he tries to dry heat his very nasty wound. A close up of the biology though tells us that the lad is doomed. The rest of the film charts Colin’s ‘life’ as a zombie, or at least the first two acts do – the third act is a look at how Colin got bitten in the first place.

Putting the first act in place of the third is a problem with this film as the second act focuses on Colin’s girlfriend – who we don’t know at the time bears any relation to the main lead so the emphasis is confusing. We don’t know who she is or why we should care and engaging character empathy is vital in a film, any film.

This is a shame as the movie is shot from the perspective of Colin for the largest part which makes it unique among the genre. This is probably why it has been called ‘the zombie movie with a heart.’

The first and second acts have a large body count and take place in desolated streets and buildings. In spite of its budget, ‘Colin’ has managed to tip a nod to the demands of the genre and gives us convincing and often humorous special effects alongside the requisite dystopian vision. The extensive use of offal is salutary (the butcher’s bill should go into the production costs audit), and Marc had evidently devoured the output of make up maestro Tom Savini and auteur Romero.

Take away the story leaps and length and ‘Colin’ is the perfect tag onto a main feature. There were plenty of shorts on show at FrightFest and this should have been one of the longer ones. As a feature film on its own, there was just too little for it to hold attention for a full 90mins. Brave though – really brave.

‘Colin’ goes on general release October 23^rd.