Review: Colin

Colin's reputation as a film preceeds it thanks to its meagre budget of just £45. Writer/Director Marc Price shot his film entirely on a hand-held Panasonic Mini-Dv Camcorder and found his actors on Social-Networking webstites. It is hard to judge Colin against other films because of its low budget but it does actually contain some good ideas. At the start of the film Colin is bitten by a friend and then he turns into a zombie. The first 20 or 25 minutes of the film are almost dialogue free as we see the zombie-stricken world through Colin's eyes. The second-half of the film then deals with Colin's family trying to get him to remember who he was before the film finally turns into a traditional zombie film with the survivors trying to kill the zombies.

Colin has a great central performance from Alistair Kirton who holds the film together vrey well giving Colin some character even though he has little dialogue apart from at the start and end of the film. The other performances feel a little amateurish but that's because they are but Price is a good enough director to get the most out of his actors. The main problem I have with Colin is not the filmic aspects, which are surprisingly good given the budget. It is in fact the script which is low on character development after 90 minutes of watching I feel I knew very little about Colin despite the introduction of his sister and mother. This is interesting seeing as the script would've cost nothing to make but is the weakest elment here.

Overall though for a debut director and given the money he had, Colin is an enjoyable low-budget horror movie which is actually better than some of the starrier horror films around today. The kind of community aspect of the film is seen at the end of the credits where Price thanks all the people who helped him out in various ways with make-up, food and locations (the scary house, the non-scary house). Based on this Price has a very promising future as a director but he might want to leave the script-writing to someone else on his second feature.