Monday, February 28, 2022

Delayed Reaction: Pontypool

Premise: A DJ and station crew doing a night show in a small Canadian town investigate a developing story of a virus infecting the town through words.

 


I’m pretty sure I didn’t understand a lot of this movie, but I still loved it. This is a cerebral horror movie. There are some effects thrown in but most of the scares are achieved through words. Similar to The Vast of Night, I love how effective just hearing a scary story can be. Most of the movie, Gran Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) is getting a slow trickle of information from a series of calls and odd occurrences. By the time he and his station manager (Lisa Houle) actually encounter the infected, I’m so on edge that they are terrifying without any effects or tons of makeup.

 

I’m pretty confused about a lot of the stuff about the virus. So, it’s transmitted by words. Certain words for certain people. It only affects English for some reason. The infected seek out others to transmit it to verbally or they die. That part I think I get. I don’t understand much of anything about the solution they discover. Speak nonsense and try to redefine words? OK, sure. I’m ok not getting it. It makes it like Primer. I’m eager to watch the movie again to see if I can pick up on more.

 

Verdict: Strongly Recommend

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