With Halloween upon us it’s time for Hollywood to hit us with their best--but mostly their worst--horror films. A lot of big screen crap has floated past me in the last few weeks; making “Colin” a breath of fresh air in what was shaping up to shitty Halloween movie season. I liked “Colin” for all of the same reasons that I was into “Otto: Up with Dead People” back a few years back, it puts a fresh face on the sometimes tired genre of zombie films. Sadly this Gem of a zombie film isn’t going to splashed all over the big theaters in glorious 3-D, it’s more of an art house film. But when it comes shambeling into your local dive theater, it will be worth your time.

“Colin” is a film of few words. I can count the number of scenes where the actors are actually talking. For most of the film Colin, the newly minted zombie, spends most of his time wondering the streets of London taking slices of the living where he can and looking for whatever zombies consider solace. With no dialogue in or sound track to distract the viewer, you’re left nothing but shuffling  zombie foot steps, the screams of humans and wet slurping sounds of the dead consuming the flesh of the living. It’s a technique that ramps up the suspense and gives the viewers mind a chance to wonder. It makes it kind of a “choose your own zombie adventure” story; is Colin a mindless eating machine like the rest of the undead; is that slack jawed look the result of decomposition, or is Colin struggling with some sort of intense newly dead inner turmoil that his now dead voice can’t articulate? Who knows, and in a way who cares, I was having too much fun narrating the story that I imagined went with the images on the screen to care.

Outside of Colin’s solo journey “Colin” does have a few interesting bits that confront subjects that aren’t usually confronted in zombie films. There is a scene where a woman escapes the zombies with the help of some creepy dude, only to find herself locked in a room with Colin and a few eye-less lady zombies. In true horror film fashion she manages to escape, but runs into a living monster that is just as bad as the living dead that she had just escaped. They spend a lot of time focusing on the time Colin spends with his family once he joins the ranks of the undead. Watching some members of his family swear that they can see recognition in his eyes, and other agonizing over the fact that it’s time to destroy the beast that Colin has become is a bit sad.

I walked away from “Colin” with my lust for blood, guts and gore of a good zombie flick saciated and a little bit of a warm fuzzy feeling. This film manages to maintain the creepy, blood lust that you need to make a good zombie film with a healthy dose of heart that I’ve never seen in a zombie film before. For the first time in my life I saw zombies as just another part of the universe, just trying to make their way in the world like the rest. Sure the fact that these creatures have to live off of living human flesh totally sucks ass, but hey the undead need to make a living just like the rest of us. “Colin” is going to have a small release, hitting art house theaters all over the country. If you are lucky enough to run across this film it’s definatly worth your dime; if you can’t catch it on the big screen “Colin” will be a worth addition to your Netflix queue.