Article: Radio Ga Ga - Pontypool

Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) is a grouchy, wannabe shock jock who wishes he had Howard Stern’s numbers. The crabby presenter has been shipped out to Pontypool, Canada, to live out an audio exile of sorts for the rest of his broadcasting life. The probable reason might be Mazzy’s desire to stir the pot on small-time radio shows that wish for him to tell things straight. On the way to the isolated Pontypool radio station to host what should be another typical, sleepy morning show filled with school closures and snowy weather reports, he is jolted in his car by an unknown female standing outside. She calls something unintelligible to him before disappearing into the cold night. And so begins the lo-fi, high-concept of the movie Pontypool. A horror feature that had the marketing tagline “Shut up or die”.

To say too much about Pontypool effectively ruins its surprise. Released in 2008, amidst a boom period of Zombie horrors, the film stands out as the “thinking man’s Zombie film”. A movie which plays on the phrase “if words would kill”, Pontypool toys with the virility of speech. Its novel approach comes from the idea of a verbal virus.  Certain words in the English language have become stuck and corrupted within a victim in such a way that they quickly become mentally undone. The zombies in Pontypool aren’t “undead” but lean more towards the infected found in 28 Days Later.  The idea is far-fetched if thought about for too long. But isn’t that the way with horror movies? For some reason, we scrutinise them far more than other genres, even when they often have something interesting to say.

Tony Burgess, the author of the source novel Pontypool, purportedly hashed out the screen adaptation in 48 hours. Pontypool was also produced as a motion picture and radio play simultaneously, with the famous radio broadcast of War of the Worlds by Orson Welles utilised as the main inspiration. This is something which makes Pontypool stand out against the many Zombie iterations that have appeared since 2002. The use of airwave broadcast combined with the isolated location builds up a sense of paranoia. In the earlier half of the movie, Mazzy, his long-suffering producer Sydney (Lisa Houle), and their spirited technical assistant Laurel (Georgina Reilly) cannot be entirely sure of the audio reports that are coming back to them. One sequence involving our beloved BBC brings a sly commentary on how mainstream media condescends and twists the words of the little man. The trio know something is going on, and while they can’t be sure, they’re still more informed than the Journalist picked to report on what at the time could be a shaggy dog story. The reporter's ignorance plays well into Pontypool's idea of how poor communication can kill people. And with only the English language being contaminated, the film becomes a striking foreshadowing of how our brand of media virality is perhaps the most toxic.  

Mazzy, at the height of his grumpiness remarks that a pissed off listener is a wide-awake listener who isn’t going to change the channel. This comment, along with similar variations, can be found in all the films I’ve watched in this recent mini-series of articles. Such a statement felt damning in each entry. With each film suggesting that what a DJ says doesn't matter, as long as the audience is frothing at the mouth once it's said. In 2008, one could only dream of how bizarre and dangerous our misinformation would become. In 2025, five years after a global lockdown, Pontypool becomes an intriguing piece of foretelling fiction.

There’s something malicious about terms of endearment being a trigger for the virus, particularly as social media is becoming increasingly aggressive in almost all interactions. One only must look at how weaponised “therapy speak” and language around mental health have become to see that Pontypool was on to something.  It’s almost as if the film has cunningly forecasted that people will be quick to discard or disguise their words in favour of violence. It’s with this that Pontypool stands out as one of the stronger zombie features of the 00s. With seemingly more power to linger in the mind than the final entries that came from the lord of the genre, George A Romero. The world has never been more connected than it is now, and Pontypool’s concentrated effort in dismantling language is a disconcerting idea that penetrates more than the one found in Romero’s last affairs, which went for lofty themes but faltered in a way his first three ‘dead’ films thrived. Pontypool touches on something so primal that it doesn’t have to do too much to disturb. Film Critic Anton Bitel notes the film and its “paranoid way it portrays personal madness and social disintegration from the inside.” Many of Pontypool’s most unsettling moments stem from benign words that shift from being used to placate to becoming unknowing incubators of ailment.

All the wordplay is a good distraction from perhaps Pontypool’s weakest elements, such as the visuals. Granted, Pontypool's 2:35:1 ratio allows the type of cinematic close-ups that a grizzled character like Stephen McHattie doesn’t acquire often. The cinematography also has an ok eye for composition. However, as a film that is also a radio play, one can’t be too shocked by the lack of eye-catching imagery. There’s a crispy look to proceedings that earmarked many features of the early 00s and betrays its lower budget more than even its sparse, singular setting. Perhaps Pontypool’s biggest faux pas, though, is the entry of one Dr Mendez. A character briefly mentioned first in early radio reports, before squeezing through a window to become the type of info dump stock character that can derail proceedings. From a narrative perspective, Mendez makes sense. We see characters like this all the time, and he is the person who (should) fill in a few narrative blanks, drop off some exposition and prepare the audience for the second half of the film.  But Mendez’s appearance slows the film down considerably. Right at a time when the tension is beginning to build. Mendez is a character who’s too odd and vague to add anything of any true significance that couldn’t have been added in a far more entertaining way.

Despite this, Pontypool remains a fascinating creature. There’s something deeply primal about what’s at play in the film.  Negative reviews have focused on the absurdity of the film, yet Pontypool still works as a social metaphor for a social trauma we appear to be facing.  In Pontypool’s universe, words can kill you. And the person who may unlock the key to stopping such a pandemic is someone who needs to shut up the most. Shock Jocks like Mazzy have dinned out on their lack of accountability meal ticket. It is perhaps the most infuriating aspect of so much modern media. At the start, Mazzy is no different from the many broadcasters who utilise controversy as currency. Pontypool is daring enough to force such a character to pull his pants up and act. A pissed off listener may not change the channel, but Mazzy has the chance here to perform a far more considerable feat. Far removed from the cockamamie conspiracies that he often peddles. He can change the frequency.  Something I think many wish for when the world loses control.

Article: Digging for Answers

I remember first discovering Dellamorte Dellamore through an old horror film website around the time the internet was young and dial-up ruled supreme. Through a stroke of luck, I managed to record it off channel 4 a year or two later. Channel 4 being the prime location for film oddities at the time. Nowadays, the likes of Dellamorte Dellamore can be found through scrolling through Amazon on whatever home entertainment system you favour. At the time of writing, you can stream it free on-demand with Amazon Prime.

For a film nearing 30 years old, Dellamorte Dellamore has lost little of its macabre strangeness. Like so many cult features, it’s defined by not being forced into an anorexic space of specification. Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett) is a cemetery custodian who is sick of having to kill the city’s dead a second time around, as they keep raising from their grave for an unknown reason.

While Francesco has grown weary of being the town’s sole caretaker of the living dead (his intellectually impaired assistant Gnaghi is of little support), the Gilliam-esque bureaucracy of the local administration seems uninterested in looking into his claims. Although as opposed to filing the correct paperwork, Francesco prefers dispatching the living dead with his revolver as not only he finds it easier, he also wishes to keep his job.

Francesco soon becomes fixated on an unnamed young widow (Anna Falchi) whom he encounters at her husband’s funeral. After a frosty reception, she responds in kind. Things become complicated however when the woman dies while consummating their relationship on the deceased man’s grave. Because this is an Italian zombie horror film that looks at the word taboo with a hilarious amount of disdain.

That speck of plot doesn’t even cover half of what Dellamorte Dellamore is about or is really interested in. In the same way, George A Romero’s zombie saga made satirical commentary on American society dependant of the era, Michele Soavi’s feature leans in towards surrealism and philosophical observations. The film’s English title; “Cemetery Man” sounds so infantile when you consider that the original title Dellamorte Dellamore is Italian wordplay which can be interpreted as either the rather literal “About Death, About Love” or the slightly more poetic “About the death of love”. No doubt the change to Cemetery Man for English Speakers was brought about due to some claptrap about being “more commercial”.

Dellamorte Dellamore is not as interested in being commercially viable as it is in surrealist and abstract alliterations and pontification between love and death. Both Francesco and Gnaghi are transfixed throughout the film with ideas of re-claiming the unclaimable. From fixing shattered skulls to falling in love with re-animated, decapitated heads of teenagers. The duo is somewhat obliged to both embrace and repeal the final float down the river Styx in a way that’s compelling as well as deeply humorous. An early scene has Gnaghi fighting against the wind as it blows away dead leaves. He ends up literally lying on top of them in a futile attempt to fight the inevitable.

The film appears to owe a lot to the surrealist movement with visuals that directly lift from Rene Magritte’s painting “The Lovers”. Meanwhile, Francesco keeps seeing his unnamed infatuation in different encounters as different women, although always played by Falchi. Each confrontation has Francesco delivers a new challenge to navigate, all the while each persona acknowledges Francesco as if they’ve met and loved each other before. The surrealist notions play out in a manner that feels like an offshoot of the cinematic works of Luis Brunel. More acutely Brunel’s final feature That Obscure Object of Desire (1977). Whereas Brunel interchangeably uses two different actresses to play the temperamental Conchita from scene to scene, both films use surrealist juxtapositions to heighten each film's quixotic sentiments of love.

While the film is as gruesome as one would expect from a particular type of Italian horror movie Dellamorte Dellamore has a dirty love for lobbing metaphysical pipebombs towards its viewer. “Hell, at a certain point in life, you realize you know more dead people than living.” Francesco rambles in a plaintive voice over. Morose, twilight life thinking from the proclaimed “engineer” of a cemetery with the Latin inscription “RESURRECTURIS” on the gate. Of course, this plays into the film’s dirt dry humour. One of the film’s earliest shots earmarks a snowglobe. We witness the visual that inhabits the globe later in the movie in a way that will either take viewers out of the film or have them embrace its eccentrics. As a good cult film does. Either way, the element encapsulates the circular patterns that inhabit the film but also slaps the viewer in the face with the film’s poignant final moments. When the film asks us to reconcile with a man whose obsession with the grave takes him to the brink. What is there beyond love, beyond death, and past our imagination? When we leave the comfort of our former ourselves past the point of no return, what else exists? Anything? In the morbidly wicked view of Dellamorte Dellamore perhaps not.

Review: World War Z

Year: 2013

Director: Marc Forster

Screenplay: Matthew Michael Carnahan, Drew Goddard, Damon Lindelof

Starring: Brad Pitt, Mireille Enos, James Badge Dale

Synopsis is here

God bless Roger Ebert. He may not have embraced modern video games as art but World War Z reminds me that while Ebert may not have got the appeal, he could see why gamers would value Left 4 Dead over films like this. The amount of engagement in Valve’s apocalyptic Zombie series is paramount to its fear, tension and enjoyment. Marc Forster’s troubled production is a nice enough distraction from the barrage of comic book releases. Yet the film, while chocked full of set pieces, is actually quite in-distinctive  There’s little in the film to make it stand out from the pack.

One of the reasons is despite its globetrotting scale, the social-political components which make the best zombie movies stand out, are mostly eliminated here. Purists have already mentioned how the film deviates from the Max Brooks’ hit book almost entirely. Yet this film version eschews so much of what makes the sub genre what it is, that the film itself is as toothless as one of the nations it references.

When humanity is in such peril, we expect the last remnants of the species to become the horror. One shouldn't expect the sobering mood of post-apocalyptic texts such as The Road (2009), but World War Z does little with its humans. Instead it concentrates on its strangely bloodless set pieces, which contain the visually impressive “river” of the reanimated.  While the argument of fast or slow Zombies still rings in the ears of genre fans, this snarling, gnashing swarm of the undead is quite striking.

World War Z does have an admirable sense of scale as it leaves the U.S to Israel, South Korea before ending up in good old Blighty, but it lacks the smaller, dramatic moments that make up all the films that WWZ borrows from. War of the World had its dysfunctional family to drive its narrative. 28 Days Later had a plague so diseased that even the rats themselves flowed through the empty streets of London trying to avoid the infected.

World War Z does give us a resourceful protagonist in the way of Gerry (Pitt) whose particular set of skills are a cheerful break from the large volume of brooding, yet impervious super heroes.  It is unfortunate that we must wait until the films much debated third act (which was reshot) before the film utilises the more typical tropes of the genre and gains a larger sense of risk. Many have argued about the films change of pace, however, I gladly welcomed the stronger sense of tension that came with the final third.

Despite its troubles, World War Z is nowhere near the disaster many had set it up to be. However, it does little to really leave its mark on the genre, be it blockbuster or B-movie.

Review: Warm Bodies

Year: 2013
Director: Jonathan Levine
Screenplay: Jonathan Levine
Starring: Nicolas Hoult, Teresa Palmer, Rob Corddry, John Malkovich

Synopsis is here

A recent episode of the MAMO podcast in a throwaway comment about the box office, placed a simple what if that really struck me until I found myself sat in the fourth row awaiting Warm Bodies to start. In reference to some studios knee jerk reactions to "underwhelming" box office, the hosts posed the simple question: What if the twilight series stopped after one?

The first entry (2008) entered the market and made a respectable chunk of box office change (Over $300 million). But it's the sequels that really opened eyes (and wallets) with the second film, New Moon, making enough money to clear a third world debt. Summit Entertainment had unlocked a box office "secret": teenage girls enjoy going to the movies too (also called the Titanic equation). Since the series ended, it's no surprise that the fantasy female teen market seems to be a big thing these days. It's no surprise that Hollywood harboured it's energies into the likes of The Hunger Games (2012). So when something like Warm Bodies hits the silver screens, it's quite clear that it's not aimed at me at all. Despite this; like the brains that lead Zombie 'R' (an industrious Nicolas Hoult) pleasingly snacks on, Warm Bodies is easily digestible fodder. For an outsider, the film is not as painful as one might think. 

For me, Warm Bodies is mostly due to the charm of Hoult, who throws himself into a role that is tougher than you think at first glance. Inspired by the physical acting of Jonny Depp's Edward Scissorhands, 'R' is a performance that garners expression from the expressionless. Combined with a dry and witty narration from Hoult, 'R' really carries the film, coming off as a undead Wall-E (check his hoarding skills), 'R' is a much more active protagonist than I ever expected, showing more passion than so many recent heroes. Hoult and the screenplay's often humorous observations, do well to paper over the films weaker points. As amusing as Warm Bodies is, it happily trundles along blissfully unaware that the films meet-cute overstays its welcome. So much so that you release that the film lacks not only a second act, but any real lasting conflict. Warm Bodies may not be Shakespeare however, when your film alludes to Romeo and Juliet, it's important to remember that conflict and strive is vital.

When Warm Bodies focuses on anything other than the musings of its main zombie, it beings to suffer. It's leading lady Julie (Teresa Palmer) turns from outgoing battle chick to thankless distressed maiden trophy extraordinary quickly, while the films last act is one brought on with very little build up or risk. Director Jonathan Levine has tread similar teen waters before, but with denser narratives and stronger themes. Due to the films target audience, Warm Bodies does much to sanitise the very fact that it's a romance about dead people. Anyone looking for any real depth in the subject (if you are a little bit odd) would be better off getting hold of the likes of Dellamorte Dellamore (AKA Cemetery Man) or otherwise. 

But if you know of the previously mentioned title, you probably won't be too bothered with Warm Bodies, a film which is much more primed to give the Twilight crowd another supernatural fix of the zombie flavour. For me, I was relatively entertained by the undead antics of Hoult and co. Interestingly; I was told afterwards that the novel is not a humorous one. I must say thank goodness the film injected laughs; otherwise this review would have ended on a much more sour note. 

Zombies! Ate my blogspace. Reviews of Rec and Diary of the dead

Zombies are great aren't they:




If you have never played this game...you better recognise! Ok on to the reviews:

All credits and Synopsis' are courtsey of www.imdb.com (Beware of spoilers in their synopsis')


Diary of the dead (2008)

Synopsis

Credits

Despite being a horror legend and the known creator of the modern zombie, George A Romero's Diary of the dead shows is almost a clear sign that the director needs to let dead dogs lie. Romero's film feels longer than it actually is, suffers from a severe lack of tension and is too wrapped up in it's message. While Romero was never subtle with what he wanted to say, here he seems to lack the bite of his previous horror satires. The film has some inspired moments and Romero still has some droll scenes of dead pan humor. However for long stretches of time, the film bores us with it's paper thin characters and their ignorant antics. I for one still can't believe that the narrator would stand and do nothing (more than once) because he needs to "shoot everything". Romero is trying to tell us that with all the information available to us, we are in danger of becoming desensitised patrons of a truth shrouded in misconceptions and assumptions...and it's a good message..he just needs to give it to us with people we care give a shit about.


Rec (2007*)

Synopsis

Credits

*UK release 2008

Rec is a hand held zombie horror much like Romero's Diary, however Rec is the more enjoyable because of one thing: Urgency. Directors Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza deal of the immediacy of the crisis and the film is all the better for it. By ramping up the pace and cutting out any flab, we are given a tightly wound 75 minute film. The film is not original in any shape or form but the execution of material (particularly the use of sound and setting) is what keeps the viewer on there toes. Short sharp shocks are melded with larger fears of government mistrust and social tension. The directors do their best to keep an Aura of dread in the isolated building before unloading with a climax filled with "what the fuck" moments. The film suffers slightly due to it's hysterical cast (they come off a bit amateurish) and contrived moments, but for the most part Rec is a taunt tense ride full of good jump scares (something I usually despise), unnerving tension and social fears.