"Pontypool" is massive dissapointment

 

  

         "it's not the end of the world folks. It's just the end of the day"

The world won't end with a virus, but words alone. “Pontypool” is a low budget Canadian zombie film that supposedly “reinvents” the genre itself. Now, every time a new zombie film comes out it feels like it gets the title of reinventing the genre if it's a little original, with good gore. So, is “Pontypool” worth all of the hype?

The film starts with three main characters, these are really the only characters you're going to have any opinions on throughout the film. The three are a part of a radio broadcast and are going about their job on an average valentines day. The main character, Grant Mazy, is our show host and is in charge of keeping listeners up to date on the latest news. Grant is still shaken up from the opening scene where he's startled by a woman speaking nonsense, and asks his listeners for help on what he should do. Not long in, the crew's helicopter reporter (who is actually on the ground) calls in about a riot he's witnessing outside of a doctor's house, people are dying, but he's cut off and no information can be found on this situation at all. After a call with the BBC that doesn't confirm anything, Ken calls back. Ken is hidden in a silo and states that he can see the rioters eating one another, when suddenly his call is interrupted with a French audio transmission. The audio states that it should not be translated, which of course they do, and has instructions to stay indoors, avoid baby talk, terms of endearment, or the English language in general. Ken calls and an infected neighborhood boy is heard over the speaker. Grant can't take it and attempts to leave but sees a hoard of infected on the way to the building. The doctor whose house was surrounded shows up, and the rest of the film takes place in the sound studio since it prevents them from hearing the infected. The doctor informs them that the English language itself is infected and certain words cause the listener to become one of the horde. How he came to this conclusion I have no idea but hey, I'll let it slide for now. What prevents the virus from spreading is avoiding English, or not understanding a word. Blah blah blah and the movie ultimately ends with Grant realizing if he confuses everyone, the virus won't spread and he gets back on the air with a plan. Overhead, authorities are telling them to get off the air and are heard counting down as Sydney and Grant kiss and an explosion goes off.

So I skipped over a little but in short, a virus takes over the English language causing the infected to turn into zombies unless they forget the meaning of the word that infected them. It's an interesting premise and was done in a pretty effective way, but it left me with more questions than anything. I’m a little scared to admit my dislike for the film knowing how much people love it, but it's just not for me. The lead actor is great and the one death scene we do get is pretty sick but otherwise, so much wasted potential.

After reading through some forums to see what people pulled from the film, some speculate the virus in it was never real and just the power of the placebo effect, but I don't really agree with this nor do I like the idea all that much. I think the idea of it being a placebo effect is boring, and I really wish we had a little more reasoning into what happened, we don't need everything spoonfed to us but we need at least a little bit of an idea as to what's going on. I’m sure there’s a big hidden meaning behind the plot but I was and still am too annoyed to even think about what it could be.

The dialogue in this movie is okay, it's not really great and the whole “kill is kiss” scene with romance between the two main characters made me physically cringe. While the director created a really good atmosphere while showing very little gore, I was really left just thinking “that's all?” I was really invested in the idea and then it just ended, it’s the first movie in a while where I had to look up a youtube video explaining it and then just turned that off halfway through cause I couldn’t take it.

Overall, it's a fun movie at the start, but also severely lacking in some areas. I wish I could recommend this movie just for the premise, but there's also a radio show version with the same actors so maybe check that out instead, since my issue isn’t with the actors, who actually did good with what they were given. But, if you really are feeling the need to watch this movie, there’s a ton of those tiktok movie accounts that post the film in 20 different parts so maybe just watch that instead. Probably a more fulfilling way to watch it.