Review of Pontypool (2009) by Cakes — 15 Apr 2017

While the fact the entire movie is spent inside and around a recording booth may seem like a cop-out on special effects, it creates a very interesting, realistic view point on an apocalypse setting. We join our main character, Mazzy, a radio talk show host, in what seems like just another day in the life. Quickly news spreads of a nearby outbreak of strange behaviour, and from there we're very slowly fed bits of information that explain what's happening, much like what would happen if you were hiding in your home watching the news during an outbreak. While immediately you may assume this is a typical zombie movie, it has a very, very interesting twist on the viral disease, which I don't want to discuss for spoiler reasons, given that it's a huge discovery and will leave you smiling once it's communicated to the audience. Personally it's difficult for me to call this a horror film, while it has it's resonating ambiance playing in the background, and over-the-phone deaths, and plenty of gore, it's not what I would typically consider horror: more of just a thriller, but perhaps that's because of it's lack of tropes (aside from the outbreak viral disease idea).

Nonetheless, whether it's Mazzy's silky-smooth voice, or the uniqueness of Pontypool's disease, it was an enjoyable and engaging watch. The low score is mostly due to the fact that the acting was kind of all over the place, while it wasn't bad in any respect, it seemed mismatched much of the time, throwing extreme emotions around where they shouldn't be, which just left me confused or chuckling. It felt slightly claustrophobic being filmed in such close-quarters the entire hour and a half, and the solution to the disease was extremely silly; showing the audience that the unique and refreshing writing stopped at the creation of the disease, and did NOT carry into the cure or resolution of the film. Regardless, I do recommend Pontypool if you enjoy outbreak films (I can't really call it a "zombie" movie, but it's very similar in spirit), and don't mind seeing a whole lot of nothing for a majority of the film. But I should remark that the story taking place without showing what was actually happening until later was handled very expertly and was made surprisingly interesting.