Pontypool

With no above-the-line talent or marketing budget, cheapo genre films often stand and fall on the strength of their titles. Whether lurid advert (Cannibal Holocaust) or lucid statement of intent (Cube), it’s an integral way of expressing a film’s individuality. Unfortunately, Pontypool sounds like a gritty Britcom – think Twin Town, but shit – though anyone expecting to see Rhys Ifans getting into ‘hilarious’ scrapes after killing the local mobster’s dog is in for a bit of a surprise.

We begin with sound waves crackling across the screen, as disgraced local DJ Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) intones inanities about a missing cat in his rumbling bass. Then we meet him: an ageing, semi-alcoholic cowboy of the airways who looks like a demonic Bob Dylan, driving to the radio station in a Canadian backwater through the dawn snow. His phone rings. He stops to answer. A distressed woman appears out of nowhere mumbling something he can’t quite catch then disappears back into the darkness. He drives on nonplussed or not caring. Something’s clearly very wrong.

Something’s also very right, though. In every other (for want of a better word) ‘horror’ film ever made, McHattie (the elder hitman in A History Of Violence) would be reaching for his phone when – BAM! – car hits flesh. But writer Tony Burgess (adapting from his novel, the even more stupidly titled Pontypool Changes Everything) and director Bruce McDonald are content to let the chills creep up on us. So when increasingly frantic reports of a zombie-like infection sweeping through the town interrupt McHattie’s show, the tension mounts organically. Pretty nifty when you consider that the film barely leaves the station or introduces us to anyone other than McHattie’s harried producer, Sydney (Lisa Houle), and loyal assistant, Laurel Ann (Georgina Reilly).

Appropriately for a claustrophobic piece that foregrounds sound, Pontypool has also been released, in edited form, as a radio play. Throughout, jingles resembling John Carpenter’s tinny synth scores battle with panicky police announcements; the infected stutter like skipping records; and Claude Foisy’s seesawing piano soundtrack offers a masterclass in menacing minimalism. You can almost watch with your eyes shut. And judging by the dodgy (but sparing) zombie make-up marring the convoluted last act, perhaps you should. It’s not a deal-breaker, though.

Dovetailing wittily with more visceral outbreak efforts such as [Rec] and Diary Of The Dead, this is an immersive film built on inference and interrupted signals rather than cheap shock-jock tactics. But the question remains: why the hell didn’t they call it Dead Air?

Vari Innes

Anticipation:

Is it a Welsh horror? Sounds rubbish.

Enjoyment:

No, it’s a Canadian horror, and it’s pretty cool, actually.

In Retrospect:

It’s quality work no matter where you come from.