Grant Mazzie is a rebellious, big city, ‘shock jock’ radio DJ, who after getting fired from his previous gig, finds himself working the small town of Pontypool, Ontario, doing an AM talk radio program. His show consists of him riffing on his passing thoughts, and taking phone calls from listeners - you know, the standard radio talk format.
He is joined by his producer, an assistant, an occasional guest on the show, and call-in traffic reports from “Ken Loney in the Sunshine Chopper,” (the ‘Sunshine Chopper’ being a Dodge Dart with sound effects.) And the whole show, (indeed, almost the entire movie!) is set in the basement studio of an old church.
During one fairly mundane, deep winter midmorning show, Eye-in-the-Sky reporter Ken calls in to report a disturbance of a riot of hundreds of people outside of a doctor’s office. Grant advises him to stay safe and the show resumes.
Similar calls come in. And as reports of incidents of violence become more frequent, a pattern starts to emerge. Eventually, Dr. Mendez, whose office was being stormed, arrives and logic sorts out the origins. The dwindling radio crew must form a plan.
Let it be said, Stephen McHattie as Grant Mazzie really carries this film! His gravitas and world-weary demeanor play perfectly for the leader of this small group, and his struggle to understand the illness and come up with a way to survive it is convincing and fun to watch. All of the characters have real personalities and backstories and are quite beleivably portrayed.
The setting, a church basement, serves not only as a secure stronghold, but also provides seclusion from the world due to its lack of windows, and as the infected draw closer, both outside and in, gives the film a real sense of claustrophobia.
The zombies here are of the ‘rage-fueled infected’ kind: mindless, fast-moving and homicidal, but that is where the similarities end. The transmission of the virus is unlike any from other films of this genre - and really drops a WTF moment.
Pontypool resides firmly in the true horror category, not the 'action-horror,' subgenre offspring of Dawn of the Dead, and so many subsequent entries to the zombie field. No guns or headstomping or copious amount of gore, just suspense, desperation, and scares.
One scene has traffic reporter, Ken, describing events unfolding around him in real time that is right up there with Quint's U.S.S. Indianapolis story... Well, maybe not. But, still, it is a great scene.
The movie isn’t without flaws, though. The source of the virus may be a bit too improbable for some to absorb. Others may find the lack of frantic action too boring. But as a scary movie in the Zombie Outbreak category, Pontypool really delivered for me. And apparently, I was not alone in this. I used my ‘Zombie Movie Rubric’ to scale this a bit more objectively and the ZMR scored it at a damned respectable 3.25 out of a possible 4.0. This translates as “definitely recommended viewing.”
But Good news! You need not take my word for it. YouTube has a trailer for it, (because YouTube has everything!)
See it here ➜ PONTYPOOL
