Pontypool: 15 of 31 Horror Movies I've Never Seen

Ever watch a movie that had you completely captivated, but by the end of it, you felt like you had no real clue what you just watched?  It's happened to me a few times, not very often, but a few times is still  a few times.  Bruce McDonald's  Pontypool is another such film that has left me with a thoroughly confused, "What the hell did I just watch?" feeling.

The film is about a sleepy town's morning radio show.  What starts out as a typical day in a small and boring provincial town quickly escalates into the day from hell as a strange virus starts infecting the people of town via words.  Shock Jock Grant Mazzy and Producer Sydney Brier are hard pressed to figure out what's going on, let alone survive it.

The film is all about words, perception of words, and power of words, at least from what I can gather.  The virus is kind of like a metaphor for the dangers of misusing and misinterpreting words.  Essentially, it turns people into repetitious, word spewing, zombie like critters who have to infect other people or they physically come to pieces and die.  It's got some pretty gruesome moments as well as some eery tension building where Mazzy looks like he's losing his mind in a most fantastic fashion.

Ultimately, I still don't quite understand what was going on with the film.  It left me and my room mate staring at it and repeating the word "What?" for quite some time.  It definitely had our attention though, I think we just need to watch it again and maybe pause it and really examine certain parts.  It's quite well shot, well edited, and the sound design is great.  Stephen McHattie puts on a great performance as Mazzy and Lisa Houle's frantic performance as Sydney lends quite nicely to the duo character dynamic.  Again, I keep having to ask the question: "What did I just watch?" Which, in all fairness, should not have surprised me from the director of The Tracey Fragments.

3 out of 5 skulls.