Pontypool is essentially a zombie flick, but it is the most inventive since Dawn of the Dead. Author/Screenwriter Tony Burgess, throws out a very scary 'What if' kind of idea which sustains the movie for a good hour. Unfortunately when the hour is up, chaos follows for the remaining twenty five minutes. It feels like the movie as a whole is trying to make a metaphor, or send out a message about humanity. However you choose to interpret it, you won't find greatness here, but you'll find something.
It starts off in the dead of Winter, in the town of Pontypool, Ontario. Grant Mimzy is the local radio man, operating with his team in a basement. One day, he hears from his man in the field (who apparently watches the town from his chopper), that a strange riot is taking place in town. The news is so bizarre that at first, Mimzy thinks it is a hoax. Eventually the scary truth emerges, a virus has broken out in Pontypool. This virus is not transmitted, through food, not through the air or physical contact. It is spreading through word of mouth. While hiding from the rest of the infected town, Mimzy and his crew must find a way to stop the virus before they themselves along with the rest of Canada becomes infected.
If I may digress for a moment, I'd like to point out how something can be hilarious in one context and very disturbing in another. The first symptom of the virus in Pontypool is sputtering gibberish, which will probably unsettle the audience. The same kind of gibberish, is sputtered by John Cleese in the Monty Python 'Inspector Tiger' skit, and it's funny.
When watching Pontypool, you kind of enjoy the disturbing feeling. This is how you can tell when a horror film is good, and up until the climax Pontypool is pretty good. For some reason, the filmmakers cannot, keep it together. They are clearly intent on having a non-cliché, unconventional climax. What they come up with, is as inexplicable as trigonometry to a first grader. Then it gets even worse, the film has no ending. Maybe the idea makes more sense in Burgess' novel format. Books can get away with stretching things out in ways that film cannot. As a movie, the Pontypool story is over-rushed in its conclusion
Movies like Pontypool are tricky to recommend because there are an equal number of ups and downs. It is up for the viewer to decide with rules the other out (the ups or downs). May as well try it.
It starts off in the dead of Winter, in the town of Pontypool, Ontario. Grant Mimzy is the local radio man, operating with his team in a basement. One day, he hears from his man in the field (who apparently watches the town from his chopper), that a strange riot is taking place in town. The news is so bizarre that at first, Mimzy thinks it is a hoax. Eventually the scary truth emerges, a virus has broken out in Pontypool. This virus is not transmitted, through food, not through the air or physical contact. It is spreading through word of mouth. While hiding from the rest of the infected town, Mimzy and his crew must find a way to stop the virus before they themselves along with the rest of Canada becomes infected.
If I may digress for a moment, I'd like to point out how something can be hilarious in one context and very disturbing in another. The first symptom of the virus in Pontypool is sputtering gibberish, which will probably unsettle the audience. The same kind of gibberish, is sputtered by John Cleese in the Monty Python 'Inspector Tiger' skit, and it's funny.
When watching Pontypool, you kind of enjoy the disturbing feeling. This is how you can tell when a horror film is good, and up until the climax Pontypool is pretty good. For some reason, the filmmakers cannot, keep it together. They are clearly intent on having a non-cliché, unconventional climax. What they come up with, is as inexplicable as trigonometry to a first grader. Then it gets even worse, the film has no ending. Maybe the idea makes more sense in Burgess' novel format. Books can get away with stretching things out in ways that film cannot. As a movie, the Pontypool story is over-rushed in its conclusion
Movies like Pontypool are tricky to recommend because there are an equal number of ups and downs. It is up for the viewer to decide with rules the other out (the ups or downs). May as well try it.