Adapted from the novel Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess, who also wrote the screenplay for the movie. Pontypool is another take on the zombie genre. Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) is a fading "shock jock" who has fallen from favour and landed in Pontypool Ontario in deepest darkest Canada, where his "take no prisoners" approach to radio DJing is at direct odds with the small town radio producer Sydney Briar's (Lisa Houle) wishes. What starts out as a run of the mill day about missing cats and school closures slowly degenerates as reports of mob violence start to seep in via eyewitnesses and escalates into a town wide quarantine with no-one, especially Mazzy, knowing exactly what's going on.
Pontypool starts off as a marvelously crafted film, it has a strong Outer Limits feel to it with the majortity of the drama being played out mainly by only 3 actors in one room and a sound booth. The feeling of desolate isolation that you get from what little you do see of outside at the beginning you carry with you all through the film and this reinforces the feeling of despair. The plot has a unique twist on the zombie genre that could have been executed to a much better degree and that's where this movie starts to lose its pace. What starts off as a chilling and unnerving thriller soon decends into a baffling farce complete with a comedy doctor character, who I'm sure isnt supposed to be in there for comedic effect but to me ended up so. It also tries (and fails) to follow along the lines of not answering all the questions à la Cloverfield but by the end you are too confused or just past the point of caring to take notice.
The dynamic between McHattie and Houles characters works well at first with Mazzys Jaded outlook and big time aspirations conflicting with Briars down to earth realistic approch which is made all the more diffficult by tech Laurel Ann's (Georgina Reilly) puppy dog affection towards Mazzy but by the end the characters fall into the scenes and stereotypes that you would hope that such a promising start would avoid. One would imagine it to be a big challenge for three actors to carry the majority of a movie and they do a wonderful job of doing so, its just unfortunate that the last 30 mins or so of the film undermines all they had achieved.
This is a good movie but falls short of great and you can't help but feel that it could have been so much better. Not one I would see again on the big screen but would possibly buy on dvd once it's come down in price.
Pontypool is released Oct 16th
Trailer
