Well, all those people who told me that were very right.
Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) is conducting his morning radio show as usual, pissing off his producer Sydney (Lisa Houle) with his provocative ways. Mazzy is on the way down, was recently fired from a bigger position elsewhere in Canada, and apparently suffers from Seasonal Affective Disorder. During the course of this broadcast, he finds himself reporting on a viral outbreak where the victims are compelled to kill somebody, then themselves...a virus that is transmitted through the understanding of the English language.
This is very much a two-hander between McHattie and Houle--there are other characters, most notably a doctor who provides expository dialogue (Hrant Allanak) and a young engineer who gives us a rather...graphic demonstration of how the virus develops (Georgina Reilly)--and the charm of it is how it’s focused more on the effects of surviving such a disaster than the disaster itself. I was reminded a lot of the opening sequence of the original Dawn of The Dead writ small, and its effectiveness comes from its intimacy. Director Bruce McDonald goes out of his way not to give us any violence, keeping the one acts committed by our heroes just offscreen enough that we don’t see their blows land, and perhaps the most unsettling scene is composed of a succession of black and white portraits that flash by as McHattie reads their obituary. The only real special effects occur when one of our characters gets infected, sickens and ultimately dies from the virus. MacDonald and writer Tony Burgess (adapted from his novel) know we can let our imagination--and the reactions of their actors--do all the work, since our imagination comes up with the best special effects.
I can’t emphasize enough how great the acting is. I’ve been a fan of McHattie’s since catching the (to the best of my knowledge lost) sleazy erotic thriller Call Me in the 80‘s, and this is a magnificent performance by him. One sequence is composed of a tight close-up of McHattie’s eyes as he listens to a live report of the carnage....and that’s all you need, because the man’s gaze tells you enough. There’s not a bad performance in this flick, which is vital considering that Pontypool is all about cerebral, rather than visceral, chills.*
There are some who might say too cerebral--that it’s nothing but an intellectual’s wet dream of what Night of the Living Dead could be. But given how this is a film driven by cognition, by language, I can’t see it going any other way. This is a great horror tale that--like our earlier entrant The Haunting--knows you can appeal to the other four senses to scare us. I definitely recommend it.
Tomorrow our sponsor is Mondo Vulgare, who maintains a webpage of the same name. He’s chosen for me 1993‘s Ticks, directed by Tony Randel, a director with a peculiar career trajectory, in which the titular vermin become large killing machines due to some experiments performed by pot farmers.
There are still two slots open for this year’s Halloween Horrorfest. Anyone who joins the Domicile of Dread Patreon at the $3 or more slot not only gets bits of writing and exclusive podcasts (like the upcoming Pacific Rim Rialto and maybe a little surprise at the end of this month), but can sponsor one of those slots and choose the film I have to watch and report on!
*--No. I have no fucking clue what that post-credit scene was all about.
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