Summary: A strange viral outbreak hits the rural Ontario town of Pontypool, as witnessed by Grant Mazzy, a local radio personality. I don’t really want to say more than that. It is weird.
So this review will be difficult to write as I don’t really want to give anything away and feel that the best way to see this movie is to just walk in knowing next to nothing. Roz and I got tickets to a screening of it through a local radio station (kind of funny when you actually see the movie) and didn’t really know what to expect other than a friend of mine from Toronto telling me about it last fall when it played at the Toronto International Film Festival. So if you want the best viewing experience know that it is kind of a zombie movie, stop reading this and go find a theater where it is playing.
For those of you who are still here, I will do my best to avoid anything even resembling a spoiler. The first thing you should know is that this is a Canadian movie (fairly obvious considering it is set in rural Ontario). If you are unfamiliar with Canadian movies, they are weird. They also revel in taking something established (like a zombie movie) and just walking off in a new direction, preferably into a blinding snowstorm. So the movie starts with the main character driving to work on Valentine’s day in a snowstorm. Business as usual. As the morning continues there are reports of strange crowds of people and rioting. The all hell breaks loose. But you never see it, and that is where this movie diverges and where its greatest strength lies. For a zombie movie, there is almost no gore (although there is a little bit and of course there is the requisite shot of many hands pressed against a frosted glass window – you do need to know it is a zombie movie after all) and the entire thing takes place in a basement. Most of the typical zombies scenes are recounted over the air by the field reporter and you just watch Grant, his producer and the assistant react to the news. It might sound boring, but I have rarely been so tense watching a horror movie. With nothing else to go on the actors have to be at the top of their game and they do a great job, especially Stephen McHattie, who plays Grant Mazzy. There is not really anything else for me to say that won’t give stuff away so I will just finish by saying that if you are looking for an uber-gore-zombie-kill-fest, look elsewhere, but if you want a tense, edge-of-your-seat drama that happens to include zombies this is your movie, baby.
For those of you who are still here, I will do my best to avoid anything even resembling a spoiler. The first thing you should know is that this is a Canadian movie (fairly obvious considering it is set in rural Ontario). If you are unfamiliar with Canadian movies, they are weird. They also revel in taking something established (like a zombie movie) and just walking off in a new direction, preferably into a blinding snowstorm. So the movie starts with the main character driving to work on Valentine’s day in a snowstorm. Business as usual. As the morning continues there are reports of strange crowds of people and rioting. The all hell breaks loose. But you never see it, and that is where this movie diverges and where its greatest strength lies. For a zombie movie, there is almost no gore (although there is a little bit and of course there is the requisite shot of many hands pressed against a frosted glass window – you do need to know it is a zombie movie after all) and the entire thing takes place in a basement. Most of the typical zombies scenes are recounted over the air by the field reporter and you just watch Grant, his producer and the assistant react to the news. It might sound boring, but I have rarely been so tense watching a horror movie. With nothing else to go on the actors have to be at the top of their game and they do a great job, especially Stephen McHattie, who plays Grant Mazzy. There is not really anything else for me to say that won’t give stuff away so I will just finish by saying that if you are looking for an uber-gore-zombie-kill-fest, look elsewhere, but if you want a tense, edge-of-your-seat drama that happens to include zombies this is your movie, baby.
B+
originally posted Mar. 18, 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment