Pontypool (2008)

YAZM ... Yet Another Zombie Movie :) Well .. sort of ... = I include into "zombie movie" pretty much everything that's horror/SF involving hordes of "infected" people (dead, undead, alive, whatever). "Pontypool" is anyway something different from anything I've seen before ...

First of all I should say that we have here an indie production which apparently found a pretty original way to lower the costs. All the action takes place inside a radio station, more exactly around the transmission room. Well, after all it seems that the movie is based on a book, so probably it was implicit to get to this setting. And to be even more cheap on the budget (just to say so), it's a local radio station, with three on place employees, established somewhere at the basement of a church in a minuscule town from Canada. What we have in the movie is a winter day matinee show, hosted by a guy who is apparently a "former glory" in terms of radio broadcasts, but whose agent doesn't seem to be able to find him a better position somewhere else. So, what starts as an usual broadcast session slowly turns into something less credible than every day's news. From some point on, the news from the diverse sources received on the wire are quite the opposite with the normal daily calm of the small surrounding community. For instance, instead of the usual weather forecast info, the correspondent ends up transmitting news about the "flow" of violent people devastating the local doctor's office. Or, in the section "live from studio", some of the members of the familial choir invited to preview the oncoming local musical adaptation of "Lawrence of Arabia" start having unusual behavior (well, more unusual that the one implied by the musical). And so on, what was initially looking as a hoax targeted to the show host, starts getting proportions ...

I can say that up to its first half the movie has an impeccable script, very clever and witty (just observe the repetitions ...), and which keeps you stuck to the screen. After this, the whole "ivasion" of "zombies" (I suppose that the main idea is obvious already) starts to be treated in a way somewhere between surreal and ... stupid. I'm not gonna disclose now what's the "virus" in this movie's version ... but I really doubt that the same idea was ever used in another one. The same for "the cure" (they're related after all). I tried to consider more the originality for this part but I can say that it might become a bit to hard to be believed from some point on, even if you keep in mind it's a movie. Probably that's why you get actually the "surreal" part integrated = in the context of the possible infection combined with the stress, the characters get to some dialogues/behavior which are a bit out of the surrounding context.

The main role is played by Stephen McHattie, probably a guy a bit less known (he's Canadian), but who I was expecting from some time to see as leading actor. And it deserved the wait. I think it's actually one of the main reasons to see the movie. Generally the cast is quite well chosen. Besides that we have the cinematography part which for me was extraordinary. I can't imagine how much further than that you can go in the conditions of the action placed in the same room pretty much of the movie. And the last cherry on top, the sound ... not the score, but effectively "the sound" - effects, editing, mixing. Well, the context of the movie = radio station (& more to see ...) pretty much demands it, but I can't appreciate the quality of what my ears have heard. For all of these, even if the last part of the movie was a bit disappointing, and draws it down pretty much ( I estimate that 3 of 4 viewers to have a final reaction of something like .. "that was stupid ..."), still ...

Rating: 4 out of 5