A low budget fun film with a decent script and a massive heart. Harold (Stan Rowe) is an OAP with ORD, a disease which affects mobility and slowly eats away at mental faculties too over time. It seems that a lot more people in the UK are slowly getting ORD and as the virus spreads with time so does the severity of the disease, going from a mild stiffness to ultimately create zombies. A group of locals decide to take matters into their own hands and wielding baseball bats and whatever they can find they seek to find any ORD zombies and lay waste to them. Penny (Sarah Spence), a local care worker assigned to Harold is a flame in the darkness as she tries to help Harold survive the disease and then anyone fighting against it - or threatening Harold. Contrasting the loneliness and isolation of growing old against a disease is a very clever and very original in the zombie film world. This film is more than a horror and like a lot of underground British low budget horror has a vast range of emotional themes from tongue in cheek humour to bitter-sweet drama. Set in the beautiful backdrop of South Yorkshire, Keith Wright's film is beautifully crafted and goes to prove that you don't need millions of millions upon millions of dollars/pounds/euros to make a great film. Don't go into watching this film thinking it's an out and out zombie film because you any be disappointed, zombies do feature but they aren't the main draw, instead just lose yourself in the story being told which happens to have zombies too. I'm a big fan of low budget and British films, if you are too this will be a good investment of 77mins.

With recently discovering that a friend was a big fan of the Zombie Horror Comedy Shaun of the Dead,I decided that for Hallaween,I would surprise her by sorting out a "serious" Horror,and a Horror Comedy that she could watch on the Hallaween weekend.Picking the 2010/11 movie Insidious to be the "serious" title,I went searching around on the IMDb Horror board,which led to me getting rec'ed a movie from a fellow,kind IMDb'er that sounded like one of the most off-beat Horror movies you could possible find.The plot:Being labelled as "the first victim" of a new disease spreading in the UK called O.R.D (rigor disease) widowed pensioner Harold Gimble lives his life isolated at home,with his bones slowly stiffening as the O.R.D. starts to turn him into a Zombie.Feeling uneasy around new people due to local gangs wanting to get hold of him for spreading the disease and local doctors desperate to perform tests on him,Gimble is initially nervous when nurse Penny Rudge pays her first visit to help him with the effects of his illness.Showing Harold a good natured,sunny side up personality,Gimble begins to feel much happier than he has been for months.But,with the O.R.D. beginning to have a serious effect on his health,Harold begins to fear that he does not have much time left before he completely turns into a zombie.View on the film:Setting the movie against the hauntingly beautiful South Yorkshire backdrop,writer/director Keith Wright's tremendous screenplay goes in the opposite direction of past Zombie movies to create a folksy Horror tale that even people who run away from Zombies will find impossible to resit.Focusing on the relationship between Harold and Penny,Wright uses the Zombie illness in a manner to paint a touching portrait of the light that Penny brings into Harold's twilight days,whilst also never forgetting to include a good dose of warm Comedy (with Harold putting washing up liquid into everyone's cup of tea being a particular highlight.)Watching an interview with Wright on the DVD,I was shocked to discover that the movie only took 9 days to film!.Impressivly,Wright makes sure that the limitation never get in the way of the story or the character's,with Stan Rowe and Sarah Spencer both giving heart-warming performances as Harold and Penny,and Wright also taking a delicate docudrama approach to the directing of the movie,which helps to create a real intimacy with the character's,and also leads the viewer in wanting to pay a visit to the nicest Zombie there has ever been right away again.

Yes, it's got an original theme and I'm open to any new ideas in the Zombie genre so of course I gave it a try and stuck with it to the very lackluster end. The name says it all, for what it's worth it was funny in the beginning that being the only part that got a serious laugh out of me, the rest of the film has bits of tongue in cheek comedy throughout. It wasn't exciting at all, as it had no "real" action or anything spooky or scary, also zero gore as the story leans more towards a "feel good" message. The plot is simple, a small distant village has a sudden epidemic of the town's men contracting this condition making their joints stiff & eventually making them dumb & violent(so of course they are dubbed zombies). The local police allow these "zombies" to be hunted down and murdered by anyone that feels the need(ridiculous). The bulk of the film is watching an old man & an overweight nurse spend time together forming a relationship while they cut back & forth with news of the current events & the trio of moronic "zombie" hunters bashing people in the head that they determined were in need of it. It was slow & pretty boring so I don't recommend paying to see it & I'm a die-hard zombie fan, but if you like the zom/com genre and have time to kill then I suppose it would be a decent choice. I give it a generous 5/10

Harold (Stan Rowe) is an old age pensioner, suffering from O.R.D. or the onset of rigor disease. He can't get out and about as much and gets forgetful. Then there's the stiffness. He can't even touch his nose. What is the ultimate effects of O.R.D.? Well, it turns you... into a zombie. And it's affecting more and more UK males. Enter Penny, (Sarah Spencer) a cheerful, dedicated but lonely nurse, as his care helper. She'll engage in therapy with him, to delay the disease's effects. However, during the onset of the disease's later stages, loss of mental faculties and violent behaviour is inevitable. Already there have been reports of attacks, which prompts a trio of baseball bat wielding vigilantes to patrol the area, taking down any errant zombie they happen to find. Meanwhile, Harold is still getting by, and starting a tentative friendship with Penny. Will a cure be found? Or will Harold have to be taken out like so many before him?I just caught this at the Edinburgh Dead By Dawn festival, and all I can say is... wow. Harold's Going Stiff is the most original zombie film I've personally seen, and I've seen quite a few. Shot in a realistic mockumentary style and not precisely a horror per se, it's a character driven cross section of genres, from horror, to (very funny) comedy, to sad bittersweet drama. It also highlights the very real horror of growing old, lonely and with a loss of dignity, with some poignant scenes.I have always thought that having a very very low budget is no excuse to make a bad film. Harold's Going Stiff simply confirms this opinion for me.A highly, highly recommended film, with some great performances, laugh- out-loud scenes, as well as some astutely observed poignancy, it should be sought out by anyone.I really hope this film gets a DVD release as it thoroughly deserves one and director Keith Wright should hold his head up proud, as this is one of the best British "horrors" in the past three years, and a very welcome return to form for the UK.9/10, brilliant film.