PONTYPOOL (2008)

[indianasmith]

A Canadian shock jock (they have such creatures in Canada??) is fired from his big-city gig for his "take no prisoners" inflammatory rhetoric and gets a job at a radio station in the small town of Pontypool.  Coming into work early one morning, he is accosted by a woman on the side of the road who shouts unintelligible gibberish at him and then runs away.
  At work, he begins to receive reports of strange behavior among the citizenry - riots, buildings torn apart, people biting and tearing one another apart.  A zombie outbreak?  But the common link seems to be WORDS . . .  as if the English language itself is spreading the virus that turns people into raving flesh-eaters.  Can he find a way to cure the "infected" words?  Or is his radio broadcast actually carrying the virus?

This was a pretty interesting little zombie flick with very little gore and no nudity, but a fascinating storyline and very engaging characters.  As much as I generally hate IFC productions, I was unable to stop watching it, and a couple of moments actually made me jump.  This one is worth a rental.

[claws]

I'm all for originality but this was a hard sale. In fact, to me this came off like a bad joke and seemed utterly ridiculous. The people I watched this with felt the same so it was good to know I wasn't the only one rolling eyes.
It's not a bad movie per se and I really liked the set up and atmosphere but the virus/language thing pretty much destroyed all believability for me.
This probably would have worked better as a Twilight Zone episode or something. As for IFC productions, I highly recommend The Skeptic. One of the better films I've seen in some time.

[3mnkids]

This is one of my favorite movies, in the top 10 for sure      I watch it a lot.   

[Monster Jungle X-Ray]

Well a lot can be said about language being thought of as a sort of virus, it infects us all (well the majority of us anyways) and replicates and mutates into new forms all the time. Why not use that as a vehicle for some unknown/alien contagion? It was highly original and unique, for a genre that is quickly being filled with inferior stories/producitons. I thought the film was well crafted, and it plays out like Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast, just with a zombie plague. Definitely worth a rental if you are curious about something different than the standard zombie movie.

[Mofo Rising]

"From symbiosis to parasitism is a short step. The word is now a virus. The flu virus may have once been a healthy lung cell. It is now a parasitic organism that invades and damages the central nervous system. Modern man has lost the option of silence. Try halting sub-vocal speech. Try to achieve even ten seconds of inner silence. You will encounter a resisting organism that forces you to talk. That organism is the word."
-William S. Burroughs

I loved Pontypool. The opening monologue reminded me of the deliriously off-kilter parable that opened the novel John Dies at the End.

Pontypool is essentially a one-room play, and I am emphatically not a fan of one-room plays. I got a kick out of this one, though. The idea that something horrible is happening but the characters don't know what is very well played here.

It's not perfect. The "word as virus" is a bit too on-the-nose for any real conversation. But I enjoyed it for taking chances at a least trying to be literate. You don't see that too much at any time.

I also think Stephen McHattie was fantastic here. His grizzled face is right up there with Lance Henriksen.

If you like this movie, I highly recommend "The Signal," which is one of the best low-budget horror films in recent years.

[The Burgomaster]

I opened this because I thought it said PANTYPOOL.  I'm so ashamed . . .

[Mofo Rising]

I have to admit, I'm really quite fascinated by this film.

Looks like it has finally got a DVD release here in the states, which I recommend checking out if you like the movie. There is an hour long radio play included with the DVD, which for the most part repeats the movie. The ending is significantly different, and I recommend you check it out because it has a pretty horrifying coda.

There's also a commentary track where the writer and director discuss the planned trilogy. Sounds interesting, I hope they get the chance to make the movies.

The original book has also been re-released. Haven't read it, but hopefully its worth checking out.

[theblooblob]

I saw this film on blinkbox (great for b-movies if you haven't heard of it!). I agree that the concept is a bit far fetched but I liked the one-room scenario all done just through the radio. The mental images that built up for me made it all the better. Definitely a psychological film for me.

[BakuryuuTyranno]

I consider this the millenium's* best horror flick

* - "decade" doesn't quite fit