Pontypool is set in the small town of Pontypool in Ontario in Canada & starts as local radio station DJ Grany Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) drives into work during a snowstorm, it's winter & it's dark & cold & Mazzy hates the winter. Mazzy starts his show, his producer Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle) listens & looks on while his technician Laurel-Ann (Georgina Reilly) pushes the buttons that need pushing. Disturbing reports of strange incidents start coming into the station, reports & eyewitness accounts of riots where people chant random words & phrases while attacking other people & property. Neither Mazzy or Sydney know what to make of the reports or whether to even believe them but they soon find out the truth for themselves that an infection is spreading that turns people into mindless zombies...
This Canadian production was directed by Bruce McDonald & is a film that many seem to be raving about lavishing all sorts of praise on it, however I see things very differently to those people & thought Pontypool was boring tripe. For a start at over an hour & a half it's far too long, the first forty minutes is slow going with nothing more than the performances to maintain ones interest. Sure Mazzy tries to inject a little life into his boring radio show, from missing cats to what the weather is doing but ultimately I was bored & not captivated. An off-beat comic horror Pontypool presents an infection that is spread by certain words, now I don't know about anyone else I just found that concept extremely hard to relate to & like. I suppose if your looking for a deeper message then you could say Pontypool is a look at how the media can use words & phrases to infect us, to poison us, to manipulate us & change us but I actually think that's giving the film a bit too much credit. I seem to get the impression that a lot of people like Pontypool because it's different which it is, because it's original which, again, I suppose it is & that it's intelligent which I certainly don't think it is. Just because something is different doesn't mean it's great, Pontypool is a good example of this. The somewhat muddled plot has it's problems too, how do people get infected? Is it when they say a word or when they hear a word? What happens to them? Do they need to feed on other words or what? It's all rather vague & Pontypool finally descends into complete gibberish as Mzzy tries to, well, confuse everyone as he tries hard to make people not understand him (including us) but talking nonsense. Apart from it's quirkiness & a few nice lines here & there I can't say I liked Pontypool at all & found it a very frustrating, boring & unrewarding experience.
Set almost entirely in one single location Pontypool might have made a decent stage play but as a film I found it repetitive. The idea of experiencing an outbreak of a new infection through the ears of a confused & scared radio station employees over phone-ins, police reports & eye witness accounts is sound as an idea but talk about stretching it out. To be honest the likes of Night of the Living Dead (1968) & Return of the Living Dead (1985) are more credible, a zombie virus spread through certain words? A bizarre concept for sure that some seem to like & they are entitled to their opinion just as I am to mine. Forget about any proper horror, I didn't think it was scary although there is one jump moment near the start & there's no blood or gore either to speak of. I suppose some will find Pontypool tense as we hear the action unfold for the first forty five minutes rather than see it just like the radio station crew but again my argument is I just found it dull & boring.
With a supposed budget of about $1,500,000 this looks decent enough & has good production values but I still didn't like it. The acting is solid, Stephen McHattie in particular carries large chunks of the film on his own.
Pontypool is a film that seems to getting rave reviews but so what? If I didn't like it I didn't like it & no amount of people who write reviews online saying how good & scary Pontypool is are going to change my mind. I guess I am just offering an alternate view to the popular one, personally I didn't find it scary, refreshing or original at all but that's just me. A sequel, Pontypool Changes (2012) is listed as being in development.
This Canadian production was directed by Bruce McDonald & is a film that many seem to be raving about lavishing all sorts of praise on it, however I see things very differently to those people & thought Pontypool was boring tripe. For a start at over an hour & a half it's far too long, the first forty minutes is slow going with nothing more than the performances to maintain ones interest. Sure Mazzy tries to inject a little life into his boring radio show, from missing cats to what the weather is doing but ultimately I was bored & not captivated. An off-beat comic horror Pontypool presents an infection that is spread by certain words, now I don't know about anyone else I just found that concept extremely hard to relate to & like. I suppose if your looking for a deeper message then you could say Pontypool is a look at how the media can use words & phrases to infect us, to poison us, to manipulate us & change us but I actually think that's giving the film a bit too much credit. I seem to get the impression that a lot of people like Pontypool because it's different which it is, because it's original which, again, I suppose it is & that it's intelligent which I certainly don't think it is. Just because something is different doesn't mean it's great, Pontypool is a good example of this. The somewhat muddled plot has it's problems too, how do people get infected? Is it when they say a word or when they hear a word? What happens to them? Do they need to feed on other words or what? It's all rather vague & Pontypool finally descends into complete gibberish as Mzzy tries to, well, confuse everyone as he tries hard to make people not understand him (including us) but talking nonsense. Apart from it's quirkiness & a few nice lines here & there I can't say I liked Pontypool at all & found it a very frustrating, boring & unrewarding experience.
Set almost entirely in one single location Pontypool might have made a decent stage play but as a film I found it repetitive. The idea of experiencing an outbreak of a new infection through the ears of a confused & scared radio station employees over phone-ins, police reports & eye witness accounts is sound as an idea but talk about stretching it out. To be honest the likes of Night of the Living Dead (1968) & Return of the Living Dead (1985) are more credible, a zombie virus spread through certain words? A bizarre concept for sure that some seem to like & they are entitled to their opinion just as I am to mine. Forget about any proper horror, I didn't think it was scary although there is one jump moment near the start & there's no blood or gore either to speak of. I suppose some will find Pontypool tense as we hear the action unfold for the first forty five minutes rather than see it just like the radio station crew but again my argument is I just found it dull & boring.
With a supposed budget of about $1,500,000 this looks decent enough & has good production values but I still didn't like it. The acting is solid, Stephen McHattie in particular carries large chunks of the film on his own.
Pontypool is a film that seems to getting rave reviews but so what? If I didn't like it I didn't like it & no amount of people who write reviews online saying how good & scary Pontypool is are going to change my mind. I guess I am just offering an alternate view to the popular one, personally I didn't find it scary, refreshing or original at all but that's just me. A sequel, Pontypool Changes (2012) is listed as being in development.