I, Zombie: A Chronicle of Pain is a film which was released by Fangoria Films in 1998; it was written, directed, produced and scored by Andrew Parkinson.
It tells the story of a young man who gets infected by being bitten by a zombie and gradually starts turning into one himself.
It was shown at the Fantasporto Film Festival in Portugal in 2000, and released to video in Italy in 2004.[1]
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The film opens in mockumentary style with a woman, Sarah talking about Mark in past tense.
Mark skips Sarah’s event for his research field trip, she is very displeased with his decision. Mark travels out to the woods to collect moss samples when he stumbles across a rusty decaying station wagon. Intrigued, he continues down the path and eventually finds an abandoned farmhouse. He enters the house and begins to explore the rooms, he stumbles across an injured man propped up against a wall when he hears a woman scream. He rushes to her aid and finds her having a seizure on a dirty mattress on a nearby room’s floor. He brushes her hair out of her face to comfort her, she has the same sort of scars and deformities that the man had. He picks her up and carries her outside, she bites his neck, he then promptly drops her and runs away, eventually collapsing in a nearby field.
Back at home, Sarah calls an investigator to report Mark missing for three weeks.
Mark wakes up and thinks to himself about how he doesn’t know how long he’s been unconscious and admits to killing his first victim, a camper in the woods. He recalls how he had no control of the situation. He decides he has to hide and rents a new apartment. He looks at his bite wound in a mirror and notices it is beginning to look worse. He collapses and suffers a minor seizure, and reports it in his digital log along with how he has not eaten in six days and he has to find another victim.
He begins to accept his condition more as he begins to study his behavioral patterns, keeping everything recorded in logbooks or his digital recorder. He still appears normal and continues to live and function in society, although his bite wound will not heal and the surrounding tissue is starting to decay. He picks up a hitchhiker and knocks him out with chloroform and eats most of the man’s chest, he burns the man’s body and possessions.
Meanwhile, Sarah begins seeing another man named David, late one night after a date, someone rings her doorbell, but she sees no one. Mark attacks her with chloroform and brings her back inside her apartment to look at her one last time. Mark continues on his hunting spree as his appearance slowly becomes more ghastly and his behavior more erratic. He begins losing a lot of weight and is becoming weaker. His leg breaks during the disposal of a victim’s body and he is forced to attach a metal rod to support his ankle with a power screwdriver. Mark also begins to lose grip of reality and is often suffering from hallucinations, his decomposition becomes so severe that he can no longer bear to look at himself so he overdoses with a bottle of chloroform.
Giles Aspen as Mark
Ellen Softley as Sarah
Claire Griffin as Sarah's Friend
Kate Thorougood as Prostitute
Mia Fothergill as Estate Agent
Nick Mallinowski as Police Man
Nana Takahashi as Girl on Phone
Paul Hyett as Tramp
Stuart Oldfield as Victim 1
Phil Rowe as Victim 2
Jon Lovell as Dream Zombie
Andrew Parkinson as Mark's Friend
Peter Hackett as Hitch-hiker
Producer - Andrew Parkinson
Original Music - Andrew Parkinson
Cinematography - Jason Shepherd
Film Editing - Gary Hewson and Andrew Parkinson
Camera Operator - Andrew Parkinson
Special Effects Makeup Artist - Paul Hyett
Prosthetic Makeup Artist - Robin Pritchard
Hair Stylist - Sonja Mohren and Caroline Woodhouse
Makeup Artist - Sonja Mohren and Caroline Woodhouse
Sound Post-Production - Tudor Davies and Andy Hewitt
The Festival of Fantastic Films, UK 1998
Commendation Award for Best Independent Feature