pontypool [2008]

we don't know how it starts but are given a hint during the opening narration by radio talk show host grant mazzy played by stephen mchattie in this canadian lensed gem that you probably haven't heard about nor less seen but you probably would like as much as me.

ostensibly a zombie flick filmmaker bruce mcdonald's low-budget feature is an investigation of the burroughsian language is a virus trope. instead of being a benefit to humankind this virus infects only certain words -- what words are random and remain a mystery thru out the run time -- of the english language. the infected become psychotic automatons attacking anything and everything and who parrot whatever is spoken around them.

the day begins for mazzy as any day. as he drives to work on a snowy road in the fictional ontario town of pontypool toward his job as the morning host for the local radio station he stops at a light and is approached by a woman who babbles enigmatically before fading back into the snow. this creeps our hero out and decides to make the question when do you call 911 the subject of that morning's broadcast.

before mazzy can get to his subject all hell breaks loose as you can imagine. but slowly. calls trickle in with callers being rather incoherent. victims of the virus? then calls report that people are being attacked by bands of psychos. all the action of the movie centers on the people in the radio station as they try to make sense of what is happening in the world just outside their door. mcdonald utilizes his small budget by saving us in-your-face scares in favor of off-screen narration of the horrors at hand that recall orson welles' radio play war of the worlds. the effect is far creepier than seeing a horde of zombies attacking the living. the radio station's erstwhile helicopter pilot echoes mcdonald's low-budget ethos. the radio station is too small to afford a real helicopter so the reporter utilizes sound fx as he sits in his car at the top of the city's highest point. yet what he relays to mazzy and his 2 person crew is chilling.

there you have it. a claustrophobic setting and the horrors of a world coming apart at the seams. now, mazzy hints at the beginning the cause of the virus but still we aren't sure as the language virus effects just a few english words and those words change from person to person. once the infection hits the radio station we are witness to its grotesque symptoms. but freakier still is when the fake helicopter pilot places his cell phone to the mouth of one of the zombies who tried breaking thru a wall to where the reporter was hiding. it is what we hear rather than see that makes us turn on the lights to ward off the heebie jeebies.

mchattie is a wonder in his role as the host who continues with his show to report on the truth. only later does he and his crew figure out that they might be spreading the virus. by then it is too late and the movie ends on a beautifully pessimistic note. mcdonald has proven that you don't need a huge budget to make a very good scare pic. what one tells rather than shows sometimes is more frightening. mcdonald's movie recalls the origin of the fright films which is a person sitting around a fire telling us scary stories. this is one of the more recent frightening stories told to date.