Pontypool

You may have noticed by now that I watch a lot of horror films. In recent years I came across quite a few interesting ones (as in: they do not follow the apparent standard formula many genre films do) and a lot of those are Canadian products.

Canada gave us some real gems in that regard. The Cube series, the Ginger Snaps series, The Brood, or the classic Black Christmas to name a few.

With Pontypool, we get a zombie flick in which you don't actually see much of the zombies. As an avid reader using my imaginagion to draw up pictures of people, places, scenes is not a new concept. In films, however, rarely anything is left to you. What a breath of fresh air to watch a film that does not present bite-sized pieces of familiar patterns.

Almost the entire film takes place inside a small town radio station, where talk show host Grant Mazzy and his crew of two get disturbing reports about mobs going rampant all over town. Throughout the whole film we, the viewers, know as much or little as the characters in the film. We learn what is happening outside from frantic phone calls.

Eventually, the zombies reach the station, as does one Dr. Mendez, who seams to have had an unknowing hand in starting the outbreak. Even the infection that produces the zombies is out of the horror movie norm. What we see of the outside crowd is mostly hands and, later, shapes through dirty, bloody glass. The epidemic does affect one of the women working for the radio station and we do get to see how the affected act. In full detail.

This film is very, very interesting.

8/10