Bad Movie Tuesday: The Colony and a Familiar Villain

Spoilers abound!

The Colony is a wonderful type of dumb. The characters are barely two-dimensional, the bad guys do spin kicks and there is a whole lot of narrating. The film rivals AVP in it’s ice age shenanigans and misunderstanding of frost bite. However, I kinda enjoyed it. It The modestly budgeted Canadian production has a charming personality despite not featuring anything original. The bumps and bruises make it a perfect late night shlock fest that you and your cinephile friends will appreciate.

The film revolves around a crew of survivors who are living out the icepocalypse inside a cozy subterranean bunker. They get a distress call from another cozy bunker and decide to investigate. The investigation turns bloody and many sneering/well dressed cannibals attempt to satiate their hunger on the good looking thespians. These cannibals resemble the baddies from Serenity/Ghost of Mars/30 Days of Night, wield weapons like pros and don’t seem to suffer from frostbite even though they are essentially humans who’ve become flesh eating jerks. They’ve also forgotten traditional language and developed a feral grunting system which must have taken years to coordinate. Imagine, a tribe of cannibals coming up with the first grunting language.

Here is how I think it went down: “No, Hank! less arg arg arg and more Eargghhh babba ganush blah.”

The most memorable part of this film is the bad guy who must be some kind of paranormal. He loves flying through air ducts and surviving explosions. In the film, he survives three separate explosions with nary a scratch. Fishburne drops dynamite in the outpost (nothing). Fishburne blows up a bridge and kills 75% of the bad guys (nothing). Bill Paxton shoots a gas canister killing the rest of the bad guys and the villain slides into an air duct (unscathed). His clothes aren’t burnt and he only becomes hungrier. During the finale he is hit in the head by a steel pole at least 37 times (not an exaggeration). He shakes it off and finally succumbs to getting his head chopped in half. Where did this dude come from? How did he become the leader of a cannibalistic tribe? Does it hurt shaving your teeth into spikes? When did he make the move to cannibalism? Was it an easy choice? Why is that scar so strategic?

Is the guy from Ghost of Mars his cousin?

Does he have Vampire relatives?

The Colony is a film where characters are named Kai, Briggs, Mason and Graydon. A young kid notices bunker seven is completely blood splattered and says “we should leave.” Does Laurence Fishburne agree? Nope. He says “Grow up.” The young kid is eaten shortly after. Bad decisions abound and I absolutely loved it.

The Colony is not a good film. However, it is a lean, never mean film that is enjoyable due to it’s bumps and bruises. Watch it. Like it. Hope for an equally bad sequel.