The £45 Apocalypse
There are low-budget movies, and then there’s Colin, a British zombie film made for the princely sum of £45—roughly the cost of a round of drinks in London or a single cinema ticket with popcorn. Directed, written, and edited by Marc Price, Colin became the underdog darling of 2008’s horror scene, lauded by critics for proving that you don’t need money to make a movie.
Unfortunately, it also proved that you don’t necessarily need a plot, pacing, or focus either.
Sure, the story of Colin is inspiring—shot on a 10-year-old MiniDV camcorder, edited on a creaky home PC, and cast via Facebook and Myspace (remember Myspace?). But inspiration doesn’t automatically make something good. The end result feels less like cinema verité and more like The Walking Dead as filmed by your cousin Gary after a long night out.
Yes, the film made it all the way to Cannes, where audiences reportedly applauded its spirit. But I suspect they were really applauding the end credits.
The Plot: Zombieland Meets IKEA Instruction Manual
Our protagonist, Colin (Alastair Kirton), begins the film alive but soon joins the undead club after a brief kitchen mishap involving his zombified roommate. From there, he spends the next 90 minutes stumbling through suburban London, drooling, bumping into things, and occasionally eating bits of people—basically doing what most Londoners do after 2 a.m.
But here’s the twist: Colin is told entirely from the zombie’s point of view. It’s a clever concept on paper—what if the zombie was the main character, the one we follow with empathy and horror as he loses his humanity? The problem is, zombies aren’t particularly expressive. Watching Colin shuffle around for an hour and a half is like watching an unedited audition reel for The Walking Dead’s extras.
The movie tries to evoke pathos by showing Colin’s decaying memory of his past life—his sister, his girlfriend, his house—but mostly it evokes confusion. Scenes fade in and out without logic, and the camera lingers lovingly on nothing.
At one point, Colin wanders into a house party, where everyone dies horribly. Then he wanders away. Later, he’s mugged for his trainers by two survivors who are somehow worse people than the zombies. Then he’s rescued by his sister Linda, bites her, and ruins the family reunion. The movie ends with a flashback explaining how Colin got infected in the first place—a detail that, by then, no one asked for or needed.
In short: imagine Forrest Gump, but if Forrest were undead and every scene was filmed through a foggy fishbowl.
The Aesthetics: Zombie Vision, or Migraine Mode
Let’s talk about the cinematography—or, more accurately, the complete absence of it. Marc Price shot Colin on an old Panasonic MiniDV camcorder that had seen better decades. The result is grainy, flat, and shaky, like someone filmed 28 Days Later on a toaster.
There’s “gritty realism,” and then there’s “we forgot the tripod.” The lighting varies between “too dark to see” and “overexposed kitchen lightbulb,” creating an aesthetic best described as CCTV footage of sadness.
Editing-wise, Colin is… experimental. Scenes drag on for eternity, often featuring Colin standing still or twitching slightly while ominous music drones in the background. It’s the cinematic equivalent of watching paint dry—if the paint were grey, crusty, and occasionally moaning.
The sound design doesn’t help either. The film’s audio levels fluctuate wildly, with dialogue that sounds like it was recorded through a sock. Ambient noises—footsteps, chewing, wind—often drown out the actors. By the halfway point, you’re praying for subtitles or silence, whichever comes first.
The Cast: Method Acting or Just Confusion?
Alastair Kirton deserves credit for giving it his all—his blank, glazed stare is impressively consistent, and his drooling technique is Academy-worthy. Still, playing a zombie doesn’t give much room for nuance. He spends most of the movie walking slowly, occasionally turning his head like he’s trying to remember where he parked.
The supporting cast (recruited from Facebook and Myspace, which is never a promising sentence) does their best, but “best” here is relative. Most extras look thrilled just to be on camera. Some of the zombie performances are so enthusiastic you’d swear someone shouted “pretend you’re at a music festival!” right before rolling.
The human characters—few as they are—are so poorly written that you almost root for their demise. Colin’s sister, Linda (Daisy Aitkens), displays impressive courage in rescuing him but then forgets the cardinal rule of zombie safety: don’t hug the undead. The resulting bite feels less tragic and more Darwinian.
Everyone else is a blur of blood, bad lighting, and questionable accents.
The Message: Humanity, Schmumanity
There’s clearly an attempt here at something deeper. Colin wants to be the Memento of zombie movies—a slow, existential meditation on identity and the loss of self. Unfortunately, it’s hard to feel emotionally moved when your main character is decomposing in real time.
The film tries to tug at the heartstrings by showing Colin’s former life through fragmented flashbacks: a girlfriend, a family, moments of love and connection. But since the flashbacks are edited with the subtlety of a YouTube montage, they just leave you wondering whether the DVD is skipping.
At one point, Colin seems to remember his sister and pauses, as if he might regain his humanity. Then he snarls and bites someone again. Message received: love doesn’t conquer all, but it might get you infected.
The Budget: From Rags to… Rags
To its defenders, Colin’s minuscule £45 budget is its crowning achievement. And yes, it’s remarkable that Marc Price managed to make a feature film for the price of a Domino’s order. But “cheap” isn’t automatically “charming.”
The film’s shoestring nature shows in every frame. Makeup consists mostly of white face paint and a bit of corn syrup. The gore effects are minimal, often implied rather than shown (probably because showing them would break the camcorder). The soundtrack sounds like it was composed on a Casio keyboard at half charge.
What’s impressive is not that Colin exists—it’s that it was finished at all. The sheer stubbornness required to film, edit, and release this mess is admirable in the same way building a raft out of garbage bags and crossing the Channel is admirable: inspiring, yes, but you wouldn’t want to do it yourself.
The Festival Darling That Ate Its Own Hype
When Colin premiered at Cannes in 2009, it was hailed as a triumph of independent filmmaking. Critics praised its resourcefulness, its grit, its punk-rock ethos. The BBC even called it “a triumph of creativity over cash.”
But outside the glow of festival lights, reality bites. Strip away the novelty of its budget, and you’re left with a plodding, incoherent zombie drama that mistakes endurance for depth. Watching Colin feels less like viewing a movie and more like surviving one.
If this is what filmmaking on £45 looks like, maybe crowdfunding wasn’t such a bad invention after all.
Final Verdict: A Shuffling, Budget-Deficient Disaster
Colin is an experiment that got out of control—an undead curiosity staggering through the indie horror landscape. It’s proof that passion and ingenuity can bring a movie to life, but also that sometimes, maybe, just maybe, you should let the corpse rest.
It’s not scary. It’s not profound. It’s barely coherent. But it is, in its own strange way, unforgettable—like a car crash you admire for happening at all.
Grade: D- (for Determination, Decay, and Digital Disaster)
Colin may have cost £45, but watching it will cost you your sanity. It’s the world’s cheapest zombie movie—and it shows every penny of it.
