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| FILM DETAILS | Certificate
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Stephen McHattie
Lisa Houle
Georgina Reilly
Hrant Alianak. | | Directors
Bruce McDonald. | | Screenwriters
Tony Burgess. | | Running Time
96 minutes |
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Pontypool () Plot
When a zombie virus is spreading through a Canadian town through spoken English words, the inhabitants must resort to broken French to try and head-off the infection.Review
Yet another zombie/virus movie, but this looks to Cronenberg rather than Romero and features a Canadian plague spread by infected words in the English language. Stephen McHattie’s radio host and Lisa Houle’s producer learn about the crisis swamping their town through phone-ins and loopy guests, and resort to broken French to avoid traps littered throughout English vocabulary (terms of endearment are toxic, and it’s Valentine’s Day!).
McHattie, aka Nite Owl in Watchmen, runs with a rare lead role; besides suspense and a satisfying finish, there’s also a mini-movie after the end credits. After countless zombie hackworks, here’s proof the genre can still be cool.
Verdict
Inventive and genuinely suspenseful, this is a welcome addition to the expanding zombie/virus canon.
Reviewer: Kim Newman
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Average user rating for Pontypool
| RE: tedious. very very tedious | | This film is great! How come it's not better known? People with no sense of genre history please fuck off! Cult films used to get support; now they get buried by people who don't know what they want, other than to be heard. ... Read More
| | | Gator About me | | 23:53, 08 February 2010 | Report This Post | |
| | | | tedious. very very tedious | | | what a load of bollocks. kim newman you have written another cack review - how do you think this is worth 4 stars ? so tedious and boring. just waiting for something to happen and nothing did. Avoid ! ... Read More
| | | jerkyjudas About me | | 00:39, 16 January 2010 | Report This Post | |
| | | | Pontypoop | | | The premise it great but the director could have done so much more with. Not very scary at all and needlessly weird in places. It's got about as much Cronenberg in it as Mary poppins. The word to avoid here is 'good.' ... Read More
| | | Smootle About me | | 03:13, 16 November 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | Deja vu | | | Great film, but I can't get over the fact that the central theme is very close to one of the "episodes" of Warren Ellis' Global Frequency comics. ... Read More
| | | tenstrings About me | | 12:08, 15 November 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | RE: Pontypool | | | Really Enjoyed it. Very thought provoking. Well acted with a really orignal idea on a genre that realy has any new ideas. Quite creepy with agreat sence of dread.
Only issue I had with it was the underlying racism of the main premice.
Hard to reccomend though. Def not for everyone. ... Read More
| | | Death_Row_Marv About me | | 10:25, 15 November 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | RE: | | | Really enjoyed this movie, thank god I saw it before reading Kim Newman's review which gives away the intriguing central conceit. ... Read More
| | | Monkeyshaver About me | | 17:33, 18 October 2009 | Report This Post | |
| | | | | | It's at the point now where I just have to ignore Kim Newman's reviews. Maybe he needs to stop watching 15 straight to DVD films for the dungeon a month and wouldn't horribly overrate so many films. ... Read More
| | | PhilAbernethy About me | | 10:39, 16 October 2009 | Report This Post | |
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