How a Low Budget Zombie Film made it to Cannes
Colin, the latest British Zombie Movie impresses Some (but not all)
Nov 5, 2009
Playing alongside horror heavyweight films in the Jameson Cult Film Club Halloween series was Colin, a lesser-known film directed by Marc Price. Price, and lead zombie Alastair Kirton were in attendance at the screening and during a short introduction, even they acknowledged their film was a little outside of a league that included favourites such as An American Werewolf in London and Halloween.
2009 Cannes Film Festival
However Price’s film made it to Cannes Film Festival this year and against all the odds, has been picked up for distribution by Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment. Colin had its theatrical release on 23rd October and picked up an 18 certificate in the UK and while it sounds like the story of an Indie director on the up, the main selling point about Price’s film is that he made it on a more than meagre budget of £45 (about $74).
The script was apparently written while Price was at his real job (at a courier company) and the cast assembled after a callout for zombies on Facebook and MySpace. Other equipment and resources were begged, borrowed or donated and almost two years later, Price had his film in the can.
The Story of Colin the Zombie
The story unfolds through the eyes of a young, unassuming individual named Colin. Colin arrives home in a rather panicked state with a bloodied hammer in his hand. Outside a relentless car alarm pierces the afternoon quiet. The only other conspicuous noise is the hissing from the poor quality audio on Price’s camcorder. We soon discover that Colin has a rather nasty gash on his arm and after unsuccessfully fighting off a zombie attack in his kitchen, he quickly degenerates into a zombie himself.
The next day we follow Colin on his zombie path through a London neighbourhood. He encounters zombies, non-zombies, non-zombies being eaten by zombies, his sister and a pigeon or two. Kirton’s acting isn’t bad, he’s got the shuffling, confused, morose undead thing going on but at times you start to wonder if he was perhaps just confused by the lack of direction, pace or the protracted filming schedule. If they existed, zombies wouldn’t have much of an agenda, besides eating some flesh every now and again but in so creating such a realistic zombie film, Price has also created quite a boring one. Perhaps it would have been more interesting if Colin had provided us with real-time Twitter updates instead of a 110-minute movie crawl through some empty London streets.
There is an attempt to portray Colin as a zombie with a heart (and a memory it seems) but by the time the credits roll, you are past caring. Critics have hailed Colin both as a ‘phenomenal achievement’ (View London – Matthew Turner 28/08/09) and conversely, as a ‘confused, unoriginal and unimaginative hand-held account’ (Guardian – Phillip French 25/10/09). By all means check it out if it’s a free screening or your friend has the DVD but in these times of economic hardship, don’t waste your own money on it.
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