“Do we really want to provide a genocide with elevator music?”

ZombieDog’s review: I grew up in Northern Illinois and remember some extreme snowstorms. If you’ve ever been in a snowstorm, then you know that they have strange otherworldly qualities to them. Sounds are different, and your spatial awareness is altered because of limited visibility. This effect is amplified even more so at night. It’s one of the rare situations that can be simultaneously calming and strangely eerie.

It truly makes the perfect setting for a movie, which is why so many are set in storms, especially the one we’re going to talk about today.

Pontypool (2008) takes place in a small town in Ontario, Canada. It starts off as we see a disgruntled DJ driving to work the early morning shift, talking with his agent about how he wants a different job. As he continues through this blizzard, he stops for a red light and a woman pounds on his passenger side window. Momentarily stunned, he rolls down the window to see if she is in need of assistance. Slowly she backs away into the storm and out of sight, with the only noise that comes back from the darkness is his echo asking her if she needs help.

Already we got a couple clues on why I think this movie is good. We got a couple of characters that right off the bat seem interesting. From the get-go, we get the feeling that something is not quite right. Past the drive into work, this is a single location movie where 90% of the film is in the DJ booth. I’m a big fan of single-location movies. I think it really forces the film to depend on dialogue and characters to make the experience more powerful. It’s definitely a leftover from the theater days, and the method is still in use in movies and sitcoms.

Pontypool progresses on with some decent character development where strange moments continue to happen. It just seems like regular morning chatter and news — yet the stories are not what they should be at a small-town radio station where the employees know everybody in town. This makes it all the more frightening when things really start to go bad. Ken (the helicopter pilot who drives around in a car) reports that they are seeing a disturbance outside of a doctor’s office with literally hundreds of people being “unruly.” It gets worse when he’s certain that he is witnessing fatalities and, in the distance, he sees a military convoy approaching.

The studio where they are broadcasting from is the basement of the church which furthers the feeling of isolation. As a morning DJ, Ken relies on people to call in as part of his morning show, but these calls keep on getting stranger and this feeling of isolation starts to grow. Add a bunch of “that was weird” moments, and it doesn’t take us long to realize we are in a zombie film. On top of that though, we are feeling the winter storm effect. The best examples are 30 Days of Night (2007) and Storm of the Century (1999). Both exemplify and characterize this feeling of isolation and dread. In my mind, there’s something completely different about a thunderstorm versus a snowstorm.

What gives Pontypool have staying power is we are seeing a zombie uprising from everyday people perspectives. Additionally, with the way it’s presented, we are not entirely certain it is happening. It feels like there’s room to doubt — although that doubt is slowly fading. The best way to describe it would be kind of a reversed War of the Worlds (1938) radio show where, instead of the broadcasters providing the narrative, the people who work at the radio station are desperately attempting to figure out what’s going on with only small and terrifying pieces of information. In fact, the writer of the book that inspired this movie refers to Orwell and his radio broadcast. In my opinion, the concept works effectively.

This is a low-budget but not amateur film that was produced and released at a Canadian film Festival (Toronto International Film Festival), and, in my mind, this is a burst of cult movie goodness. In a world where there are tons of zombie movies, Pontypool manages to find a new way into the genre. At the same time, it also manages to redefine zombies.

This movie is for small group viewing. I would also suggest that you wait until there’s a winter storm, and let’s say around midnight. Zombie movies are not for everybody; I get that, however this one is slightly different in that there’s not a lot of gore. It’s more of a psychological thriller with some zombies on the side.

Finally, in my opinion if anything is the body and soul of cult movies it would have to be independent-movies and the creative spirit that accompanies them. I would always suggest looking for those movies that are not necessarily mainstream, because you just never know what you might find.