Pontypool (2008)

Is there such a thing as a psychological zombie thriller? Yes, it's called Pontypool.

Pontypool was half of 2009's sub-genre of zombie films: zombies and radio stations. The other half was Corbin Bernsen's Dead Air. When it comes to setting a movie in a radio station during a zombie outbreak, it seems logical to expect two things: some spooky, Orson Welles-ian radio drama and, perhaps, a little gore. Pontypool has both elements, though one is in short supply.

Pontypool definitely delivers on the radio drama, having been initially developed into a radio play before it became a film. In order to pull off a radio drama effectively, the movie has to be acted well, and Pontypool's Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, and Georgina Reilly definitely deliver as DJ Grant Mazzy, producer Sydney and engineer Laurel-Ann, respectively. The rest of the voice cast also does well, heightening the tension as the outbreak gathers momentum, and the movie does what it is supposed to do: build the scares in the viewer's imagination. Seems like a simple concept given the premise, but Dead Air seemingly forgot all about that.

Pontypool also had the advantage of a script from Tony Burgess, also the writer of the novel Pontypool Changes Everything, on which the  movie is based. Burgess's script does a nice job of filling us in on the characters and then plays the outbreak as real, which director Bruce McDonald aids by never using any unusual or stylized photography, just allowing the situation to unfold and the actors to react naturally to the situation. The best horror films know that the audience will be gripped if the characters seem real, and Pontypool uses this to its advantage.

Once the rabid mob starts growing, it's only natural that Pontypool starts ratcheting up the gore level, and while there is a successfully scary and gory transformation inside the radio station, the movie has very few interactions with the maddening crowd. Assault on Precinct 13 this is not.

Perhaps this stems from McDonald not wanting to call the infected "zombies" but "conversationalists," a name that lacks a little in scare quality, due to the outbreak being caused by a trigger in the English language. So, yes, the "zombies" here are not "zombies" but  blood spilling from the mouth and running around trying to tear people apart sure sounds like a zombie. McDonald can fight off the "zombie" tag much like Danny Boyle did for 28 Days Later, but the fact is, they may not be the undead, but they are riffs on the zombie genre, so get over it quick. By all means, try something new, but don't forget that zombie fans are your target market here, which makes the lack of, not gore per se, but physical conflict with the infected a little disappointing.

Also dimming the bright bulb of Pontypool, is McHattie's forced solution to the infection, which is too complicated to describe now but essentially is about trying to control your own randomness. The language "trigger" of the virus was always a curious element to me, and I'm not sure it totally worked, but the rest of the movie is so good I wanted it to work.

Pontypool is such a strong effort that news of a sequel are not only inevitable but welcome. A sequel would have no choice but to interact with the outbreak head on, and if McDonald continues to play the movie with realism and Burgess writes another terrific script, the movie could very well be even better than the first.