Contains mild spoilers.
More a psychological
horror thriller than zombie film, Pontypool is a tightly focused drama that
focuses on disgraced local small town disc jockey Grant Mazzy played by Stephen
McHattie and his small team as they follow and broadcast the Canadian town's average
winter morning, of school bus delays and traffic congestion, descend into
chaos. Adapted from Tony Burgess' novel Pontypool Changes Everything, Pontypool
is a philosophically ambitious attempt at something genuinely new and
terrifying and whilst requiring a certain suspension of disbelief pulls off an
entertaining yarn that certainly raises a few metaphysical questions.
Even early in their
shift it becomes clear to the new morning anchor Mazzy, his producer Sydney
Briar (Lisa Houle) and technical assistant
Laurel-Ann Drummond (Georgina Reilly) that the morning's usual routine
is going to be anything but mundane and normal. Supping on his morning whiskey
Mazzy responds initially by making fun of what he perceives to be a small town
drunken hostage situation but as more reports file in, his old hunger and
tenacity start to surface with a desire to connect the dots and find out what's
really happening.
The dynamic between
tired and brow-beat maverick and controversial Mazzy, reduced to finishing off
his days as a small time radio DJ, and a confident but fragile divorcee
producer Briar constantly keeping him in check is tried and tested but works.
The acting is confident and whilst the characters are well portrayed, a lack of
urgency and panic especially during some of the more intense latter scenes did
dismantle some of the credulity a touch.
The slow safe build
up soon ups the ante with weather and traffic helicopter reporter Ken Loney
first calling in to talk of rioting citizens laying siege to a nearby local
doctor's surgery and later of herds of mumbling, chanting, naked wild animal
like citizens roaming the streets searching out survivors to tear and apart and
eat.
It certainly sounds
like a zombie film at this point, having the word zombie quoted on the cover,
but it's clear from the outset that the victims are infected and not dead and resurrected. Always a good
debate I'm a bit of a purist and although they're incoherent mindless monsters
with a desire for live flesh, the fact that there's no surviving death and no
head shots as a final solution, zombies for me they are not. Also while I'm always
happy to broaden the definition of zombie
to describe creatures exhibiting zombie like behaviour it's not quite good
enough for me to call this a zombie film and I'd put Pontypool in the same
category as The Crazies. Even director Bruce McDonald stressed the victims of
the virus aren't zombies and he called them conversationalists.
What stands
Pontypool apart from other infected-people-going
-a-bit-loopy films like The Crazies is the nature and transmission of
the virus. There's no chemical spill, lab breakout, or even evil darkness.
Burgess has put forward the unique notion that the infection is spread through
language, more specifically, through conversation and the transference of an
idea. At the point of understanding, of knowing
an infected-trigger word or phrase, the infection/virus/parasite pops into
existence in the host. Philosophically the idea is fascinating; outside
consciousness and language the infection doesn't exist but somehow as the
infected-idea encapsulated by a key word or phrase is passed from infected to
victim, the reality of it is also shared. Without the structure and bounds of
language, consciousness and understanding it couldn't exist yet as the parasite
or the idea of the infection isn't transferred but comes into reality when the
idea is realised it must already be ever-present. It's certainly a play with
the philosophy of language, consciousness and reality and depending on how you
take it could just as well as being seen as a clever metaphysical, yet
inherently terrifying, paradoxical conundrum, or as a right load of old tosh...
The film carries
across its origins as a radio play and feels like a drama set almost
exclusively in the few rooms of the radio station. Just like the station crew,
the viewer is never granted shots of the world outside to confirm what is
taking place and this restriction to the same information allows the same
feelings of confusion and doubt to transfer. Really demonstrating what can be
accomplished with a limited budget McDonald puts to shame many horror films
that either fail with too much ambition or too much low grade special effect.
It's a clever authentic tight little narrative and, despite the single set and
small cast, moves with good pace and never becomes tiring.
Initially
disappointed I'd picked another nearly-but-not-quite zombie film, I enjoyed
Pontypool because of and despite of all
it's existential tomfoolery. With a well presented narrative, established three
dimensional characters and tight professional production that looks glorious in high definition there's a lot to
recommend, but in some respects the very things that make the film a success also hold it back. As well as a lack of real action, the single scene environment restrains the narrative and any feeling that the problems could be really be apocalyptic in scale. Also it's never really that scary and whilst the scenes with the infected are well presented and shocking they are infrequent and let down by the survivors' subdued reaction to them. A tight slow paced psychological mind-fuck. Think of a number, got it? 7/10.
Steven@WTD.
I tend to agree with you. This is a zombie film that isn't for everyone. It brings a unique, and needed, concept to the horror genre, but doesn't bring the expected carnage. But I think that's ok. I like it when a horror movie comes along that feels real with characters that have depth. I've had enough of early 80's stereotypical characters in grind-house horror flicks.
ReplyDeleteI also got the chance to review this film on my new blog. I'm just getting started and would love some feedback from a critic. Check it out if you can.
http://horrormoviemedication.blogspot.com/2013/02/pontypool-breath-breath-breath-breath.html