{"id":9775,"date":"2010-10-10T19:27:25","date_gmt":"2010-10-11T03:27:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9775"},"modified":"2010-10-15T11:23:44","modified_gmt":"2010-10-15T19:23:44","slug":"pontypool-bruce-mcdonald-2008-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9775","title":{"rendered":"Pontypool (Bruce McDonald, 2008): Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden<\/a>. \u00a0Viewed on DVD.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

With the \u2018film-in-a-box\u2019 festival darling Buried heading towards theaters, I thought I\u2019d visit another movie set in a restricted locale.\u00a0 2008s Pontypool<\/em><\/a> is a Canadian horror flick set almost entirely within the confines of the church basement from which a local radio station broadcasts.\u00a0 Though it loses its way a little at the end, the journey there makes this atypical zombie tale worth a watch.<\/p>\n

Shock jock Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie) has fallen from grace.\u00a0 Reduced to broadcasting his particular flavor of firebrand vitriol on a small-town-radio breakfast show, Mazzy\u2019s \u2018take no prisoners\u2019 routine is trapped, like him, in a dead-end job.\u00a0 As he rails against its confines, alternately castigating the local constabulary and announcing school snow days, stories begin to roll in about a disturbance in town.\u00a0 The trouble escalates and the DJ must decide whether he believes the reports, and come to terms with the fact that he might be responsible for the shambling, droning hordes causing chaos on the streets.<\/p>\n

Though the film was apparently a low-budget affair, this only really makes itself felt insofar as the film his highly economical.\u00a0 That is to say, it focuses on a small cast, minimal locations, tight running time and a paucity of special effects.\u00a0 And that\u2019s a good thing.\u00a0 It keeps things tight, allowing the suspense to build without any release.\u00a0 The film certainly never feels cheap.<\/p>\n

Also weighing heavily in the film\u2019s favor is the performance of McHattie.\u00a0 Aside from having a voice that makes a 60 cigs and a fifth of scotch a day habit seem almost attractive, he does a great job of making his radio maverick both obnoxiously egotistical and roguishly likable.\u00a0 That his young audio engineer (Georgina Reilly) has developed a crush on him feels perfectly plausible, as does the fact that, when things start to go wrong he is looked to, however mistakenly, for support.\u00a0 The film is also visually interesting, with the near monochromatic set and noir-ish lighting making the occasional splash of color all the more arresting.<\/p>\n

The film does stumble somewhat when it reveals its premise.\u00a0 You really do have to suspend all disbelief and go along for the ride.\u00a0 It does however allow the filmmakers to inject a strong political statement regarding the colonialist practices of the English speaking world.\u00a0 The ending is also somewhat bizarre and really comes at you out of left field, an issue compounded by the truly strange post-credits sequence.\u00a0 If you can live with this, one of the most efficient, intelligent and idiosyncratic horror films of recent years will reward you with a great, creepy night in.<\/p>\n

DVD extras are sadly limited to a trailer. \u00a0This is one film where I’d have loved to get behind the scenes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Richard Feilden. \u00a0Viewed on DVD. With the \u2018film-in-a-box\u2019 festival darling Buried heading towards theaters, I thought I\u2019d visit another movie set in a restricted locale.\u00a0 2008s Pontypool is a Canadian horror flick set almost entirely within the confines of the church basement from which a local radio station broadcasts.\u00a0 Though it loses its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9775","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dvd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9775","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9775"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9775\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9775"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9775"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9775"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}