Review of Pontypool (2009) by Jason P — 01 Jan 2012

SUCH an interesting concept, but I was frustrated by the lack of rigor in its application. The rules of the virus were never clear to me, and seemed pretty inconsistent, which kept it from being as scary or semiotically suggestive as I would have liked.

There were some definitely creepy moments, though, and of course any horror movie that invokes Roland Barthes is going to be up my alley... But in a way, it felt a lot like Peeping Tom (1960), which was assigned to me in my college film classes -- a "horror movie" which makes more sense as an academic argument.

Both movies feel like the work of smart, well-read people trying to reverse-engineer horror, and in neither case do I think they were entirely successful.