To me, one of the most frightening parts of any zombie/apocalyptic thriller is the section just before things go really wrong. The time when we're maybe encountering people with the first symptoms of some horrible virus, or seeing or hearing news reports that suggest the world has gone to hell.
Most end-of-days movies don't spend much time on moments like these. (Think Clive Owen perusing news clips in Children of Men, or the opening minutes of either Dawn of the Dead film.)
Canadian director Bruce McDonald's Pontypool -- which is playing now on On Demand -- goes a different route, showing us a zombie-ish outbreak from the point of view of three people at a small town radio station. It's like a cross between 28 Days Later (in that the outbreak doesn't cause the dead to rise, but rather is an infection that turns people into mindless, violent creatures) and the Orson Wells War of the Worlds broadcast. And in its first two thirds, it's extremely scary and effective, and one of the best, most original horror movies in some time.
Note that I said "the first two thirds." In the movie's last section, in which zombies swarm at the station and a scientist character shows up to explain what we've already figured out,Pontypool loses a lot of its original tension.
Pontypool takes its name from a small town in Canada, where disc jockey Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie, pictured above) hosts a morning talk show. Because he's a DJ in the Stern/Imus mold, he says whatever's on his mind. Because it's a small-town station, he's sort of restricted from doing that. Having been fired from a larger station, Mazzy is forced to blend his "take no prisoners" (as he calls it) attitude with more mundane things like school closings and chatting with Ken, the station's weather/traffic/field reporter.
It's during one of these reports from Ken that Mazzy hears about an apparent riot at a doctor's office. What sounds at first like a political protest -- the doctor had been a controversial figure, although we never really learn why * -- quickly turns violent, as the people literally force their way through the walls of the building.
* Sort of an eerie real life connection. Iwatched this movie the same day that George Tiller, another "controversial" doctor, was murdered.
Of course, we never see any of this. It's all being described, first by Ken, then by other callers: a cop, a witness, a BBC reporter who seems to know more than Mazzy and his producer Sydney (Lisa Houle) and technician Laurel (Georgina Reilly). The callers tell of people forming themselves into "herds" and attacking others. It's clear there's been several deaths and injuries; the only symptom for the sickness is that it causes people to speak gibberish, repeating words or phrases over and over. (In one frightening case, Ken calls into the station and plays the sound of a teenager literally crying like a baby).
At the same time, Mazzy and his team aren't sure what to believe. Nothing official has come in, they tell themselves, so who can they trust? At the same time, those reports from Ken sound awfully convincing. After awhile, they -- and we -- realize: this sickness isn't spread by blood or by germs, but by language. Hearing certain words is causing people to lose their humanity.
Because this is a horror movie, this has to lead to a big crisis/confrontation, and that's where Pontypool loses it's scariness.( It doesn't help that there's some sort of murky message about mass media and the English language at work.) The monster we don't see is always going to be more unsettling than the one we do. The general rule for storytelling is usually "show, don't tell." Here's a movie that does the opposite, and makes it work.
Tom Coombe
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