Last year we saw another revival of zombie movies from the British, ultra-low-budget COLIN, to the the larger-than-life Hollywood comedy ZOMBIELAND, with its sun-drenched, wide open spaces of the US of A, led by loudmouthed, Stetson-hatted Woody Harrelson. PONTYPOOL couldn’t be further removed from from these examples, apart from it also having a bigmouthed hat wearer.
Set in the dismal snow-covered winter of small-town Ontario where Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie from WATCHMEN) has ended up, as his career as a shock-jock continues its downward spiral. Reduced to talking about the weather and traffic from a radio station in the basement of a church, Mazzy is always trying to bait his audience, but under the strict control of his producer (Lisa Houle) and her assistant (Georgina Reilly). The morning starts to get weirder when reports of a mob attacking a doctor’s surgery then turning on each other start to emerge. Mazzy, shut in his booth, reports on events as they start to unfold.
Surprisingly, for a movie about someone talking on the radio, this manages to develop quite a lot of tension, and from the beginning it is our imaginations that create the zombie hordes, until they eventually arrive at the radio station. The overall conceit of how the zombies are created in the first place is very clever, considering the setting of the film. Unfortunately, it is difficult to be more specific about the details without giving away some of the important plot points of the film. In fact, I believe there is a special circle of hell reserved for so-called film critics/reviewers who give away major film spoilers (right next to the one reserved for people who have their computer desktop covered in files). Suffice to say, this is one of the smartest zombie movies (the movie is smart, not the zombies) that has been around in a long time, and it can be enjoyed by people who don’t even like the sub-genre because it is so well written and performed, without it having to resort to the usual blood and gore these films are associated with.
Not much in the extras on this release, apart from commentaries, trailers and a couple of very arty, black-and-white, Canadian shorts. The Blu-ray also has a 30-minute, radio-play version of PONTYPOOL.
PONTYPOOL is out on DVD and Blu-ray now and is available from Play and all good retailers.