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.
