Devouring the flesh of the living

Colin has been doing the rounds on the wordwide filmfest circuit for several years now, but has only recently received any serious distribution. Heck, the magazine I co-write for – RevenantMagazine.com – showed Colin at their yearly film festival back in 2008 (where it received high praise too, long before the current PR Hoopla I might add). So, critics seem to love it, and the zombie fans who have seen it before everyone else loved it too. How about the zombie fan who saw it when it actually got released, now that there is no cred to be gained from seeing a hyped film before it’s fully out in the wild? Well, that is the camp I fall into.

Low-budget zombie movies probably make up around 50% of the films from my blog, so it’s fair to say I have had a fair amount of exposure to both the excellent and the abominable no-cost undead films. But then does my opinion really matter? Well no, not really. But i’m going to give it anyway.

Colin is a fantastic low-budget movie which totally shows up just how poor the majority of other SOV zombie films really are. The direction is superb, there are some amazing camera shots that both look good and genuinely add to the story, and the actual plot has both originality and some real soul to it, especially considering that there is next to no dialogue in the entire film.

OK, we’ve had films from the point of view of the zombie before. Most notably a similar British movie I, Zombie. However, this is probably the first movie to follow the Revenant while he goes about his business as a real Zombie during the Z-War Apocalypse. We get glimpses of the few remaining humans racing past Colin during his seemingly aimless roaming of the streets, see zombies devouring the numerous corpses and even get to meet Colins’ living family members as they bump into their corpsified relative.

While the majority of the film seems to have very little plot whatsoever it soon becomes apparent that this really is not the case, and that Colin is actually a film about how thoroughly ingrained into our conscience the experiences we live through really are.

Sure, it’s not a perfect movie. For what seems like 5 minutes we get to see a girl stumbling around in a pitch-black cellar not really being able to see what is going on, and throughout the film the frenetic ’shaky camera’ effect when the action kicks in is so over-the-top that it just causes nausea and confusion rather than add to the atmosphere. But these issues can be overlooked by the fact that this film really does try to do something different, and totally succeeds. I was so engrossed that I didn’t realise until the end that there was no nudity whatsoever! Now that must be a good recommendation.

Gore Score C
Norks Score F
Originality Score A
Overall Score B+

OK, it’s probably about time for some mental Japanese zombie horror. Having recently gone through a phase of watching Japan-o-gore movies, none of which were Zombie films (Meatball Machine, Machine Girl and the awesome Tokyo Gore Police) I felt it about time I dive into some Japanese Zombie gore, and this wierd little number fit the bill perfectly.

I shall start this review with some choice words summing up the film : cheap, gory, psycho zombie-baby, cyborg and a space octopus. Now, that’s gotta get your attention, surely. Space Octopus?

Opening up with some CGI so awful that my GF sat for about 1 minute of the film before heading straight to bed moaning that she’s never seen such cheap CGI in all her life – and I’m almost inclined to agree – ZSDF kicks into the live-action in a forest somewhere, and we meet a few pockets of nefarious weirdos all separately going about their business. Such business includes some drug addicted Yakuza burying one of their victims, a group of army types on a training exercise, a J-pop starlet on a photo shoot and a sleazy husband breaking up with his pregnant mistress.

All these parties see a crude CGI flying saucer flying overhead, which crash-land somewhere in the forest emitting a bizarre green-glow of radiation. Obviously this strange gas thing has the side effect of reanimating the dead, and the remaining people meet up while running from the undead and seek refuge in a local bed and breakfast place.

Holed up in this venue with the undead knocking at the windows and the humans slowly succumbing to the zombie virus we get treated to loads of excellent low-budget gore (the best kind of gore hands down), a fantastically mental zombie-baby going on the rampage and the transformation of one of the characters from confused human to badass robot-cyborg. And then there is the aforementioned Space Octopus. Yes, (s)he only gets a screen time of about 2 seconds but it was the highlight of this bizarre cheapo gorefest.

An original film? Well, not particularly. Cutting-edge effects? Certainly not. Plot, script and storyline? Hell no. But bizarre comedy and loads of gore? Why yes please.

Gore Score B+
Norks Score F
Originality Score C-
Overall Score B-

Ah, the old ‘chemical experiments on recruits to create a new breed of super-soldiers’ plot. The current standard for zombie films. Can’t we kick off another Cold War or have a new Nuclear Arms Race or something? Anything just to get a new idea for reanimating the dead.

At least Wasting Away tries to do something reasonably original, that is by infecting the stars with zombism – via neon green zombie beer ice-cream no less – without their knowing. Yes, these 4 losers have become zombies and don’t even realise it. They see each-other as full-on normal chaps, but to everyone else they are the walking dead. This is done quite cleverly by showing the scenes of the main stars in colour, while whenever anyone else glances at them the film switches to black-and-white and we see them as they really are – veiny, shuffling members of the undead.

As unique as this sounds for a film it does present some problems. The first minor issue is that blood and gore looks a lot more exciting when it’s in colour. Secondly – and this is the main problem – having one unusual interesting idea is not really enough to base an entire movie on. Oh yes, it’s all good and fun the first couple of times the camera switches to Black and White and we see them transposed as zombies, but when that is the whole plot device and we have to sit through it again and again it just gets irritating. If they actually wrote a story around this idea then maybe it wouldn’t be so annoying. But there isn’t one. It’s just some crappy characters becoming unexpected zombies who spend half the film hanging out together not realising their condition, and the other half hanging out still not really doing anything but this time with an army private who has the same condition.

I guess they were trying to go for the ‘Return of the Living Dead’ comedy angle, but the film it really reminded me of was Idle Hands. And that’s a shame as I quite like that movie, but I don’t want to be reminded of this plotless borefest the next time I watch that.

OK, the acting is actually pretty good for a low budget film, there are a couple of genuinely funny moments, and having one unique idea is better than none, I suppose. But surely there needs to be something more to fill out a whole film? Hell, there’s not even any nudity or any real gore? Seriously, what’s the point of that?

Gore Score D
Norks Score F
Originality Score B
Overall Score D-

Also posted at http://www.revenantmagazine.com/)

We’ve all have conversations about what we’d do if we were the last person alive, and although Zombie movies often present this situation nobody ever seems to take advantage of it. Sure, recently we’ve had Last of the Living where the guy do spend a while just kicking back, squatting in big mansions and raiding the nearby stores for cool CDs, but eventually it all goes pear-shaped as expected. Not so with Zombieland.

Making the most of the seemingly endless electricity and petrol (best not ask how these are still working) Tallahassee just kicks-ass, drives his big 4×4 searching for the last box of Twinkies (soft, yellow, delicious bastards) and beats Zombies over the head with whatever comes to hand. Columbus, however, is a geekly World of Warcraft fan who has survived by following his own series of rules, such as having good cardio (although how a skinny loser who survives on Golden Grahams and Mountain Dew has such good cardio is bizarre.)

Naturally there as some chicks involved, who do what women are good at : getting in the way of the fun, being annoying and not putting out for the guys! Sheesh.

Anyway, these 3 peeps get together, have some arguments, get to know each-other and start bonding (well, the film does have to be about something I suppose).

In amongst the thin plot are some great zombie movie moments. There is some of the best use of Slo-mo since Baywatch, some great zombie kills (death by banjo, rollercoaster, grand piano and even car door) as well as the accidental murder of a celeb. Sure, there could’ve done with some more zombies, and the ones that were there don’t really have the look of the undead about them (just the odd bruise and lots of bloody faces, no limbs hanging off or suchlike). However it is highly refreshing to watch such a gleefully enjoyable zombie movie, one that doesn’t restrict itself to a typical siege plot and especially one that doesn’t attempt to give a nonsense explanation to the zombie epidemic, it just gets on with it.

Gore Score B-
Norks Score D
Originality Score B-
Overall Score A

Click to go to Series of Bullets!

At Devouring the Flesh of the Living it’s not only about Zombie movies.. Well, actually, here it is. However, there is more to life than just the living dead, and that is why I have started up a brand new sister-blog, Series Of Bullets.

At Series of Bullets, whole entire series of horror films will be covered without all the nonsense ‘review’ guff, but by simply breaking down the films and the whole series into simple bullet-points.

• How Many Death?
• Which Weapons?
• And importantly, is there any nudity?

Naturally, this won’t effect the zombie movie output over here at Devouring the Flesh of the Living, so you can still get your fix of new, classic and absolute tosh Undead horror, but when you fancy diving into a horror movie series or two, don’t forget to check out Series of Bullets.

The entire Friday the 13th Series is already up ready for viewing (yes, all 12 films!). Check out the below poster for how the films break down in one glorious chart!