Eclectic Memes

“Colin” for those who are uninitiated, is an independent zombie movie that has been given a lot of attention lately. With this in mind, I purchased a copy on DVD and watched it this evening. Here are my thoughts.

Firstly, “Colin” has a simple, (almost) linear, narrative. It follows the fortunes of (and this will be a surprise to no one) Colin a hapless youth who falls foul of an unexplained zombie outbreak.

Reportedly filmed for about £45 “Colin” has been the talk of the town since Cannes, where it received wide approval and plaudit. Where they got a camera, editing software and a machine to run nit on, for £45 is anyone’s guess (my guess, they kinda, sorta forgot to include this stuff in the budget). Anyway, on to the movie as a piece of art.

Much of the film is recorded in migraine inducing hand-held shaky-cam. This is one strike down in my book. Too much of anything is tiring, too much of nothing to see but flashing images is tiring and uninteresting. You get the feeling that the main purpose of the camera work is to cover for poor lighting and shoddy makeup. And when shaky-cam was not an option, they went for grainy texture art film – oh dear.

Does the film have a coherent narrative. Well, yes and no. The film follows the hapless Colin through his journey as a zombie returning to the point of his infection at his girlfriend’s flat. And this could have been so interesting, but it’s not.

It would be nice to report that the scenes where Colin, before being infected, is struggling with his, now infected, girlfriend, where in some respect moving. That his infection was the result of some noblesse oblige, but, much as this is what the film makers seem to want to portray, it just does not work.

Along the way we encounter a series of unsympathetic, vacuous characters with whom we, the audience, have difficulty relating. The one notable exception being Colin’s sister, but even this character is effectively assassinated by too saccharin a treatment (and her final conversion to a zombie, of course). The family, who attempt to ‘deprogramme’ Colin are apparently too stupid to lock doors, and so Colin and newly zombified sister make a rapid escape from the familial home so recently fortified by blacking out the windows with newspaper bearing stories of ‘walking dead’ (see what I mean be heavy handed imagery?).

The film is at times heavy on imagery. Again, unfortunately, much of this is cliched and unimaginative.

Does the score rescue the film? No. It is heavy handed and uninspiring.

So, what does the film tell us? Firstly, it tells us that you apparently cannot make a good zombie movie for £45. Secondly, it tells us that a Cannes reaction is no indication of what constitutes an interesting movie. And thirdly, it tells us that even an interesting idea can be fucked up by someone.

A reasonable summary might be Cloverfield, meets Blair Witch, meets Wasting Away but with none of the merits, such as they are, of any of these films.

Sorry guys, I really wanted to like Colin. Truly, I wanted to discover an innovative, low budget, dynamic (or at least compelling) narrative film, but “Colin” is not that film.

Look, “Colin” is exactly what I would expect from a competently student made film using a budget of £45. Nothing more.