"Pontypool"
by Sean McTiernan
Horror movies are so powerful because of the many different ways artists can spin the archetypes. They aim for the most visceral and basic of reactions, but how they go about getting these responses can be fascinating even when the movie is terrible. Such a pity then that zombies and horror have been assaulted by petty gate-keepers of imagined rules, pounding on their leather back copies of What Zombies Should Do, their mouths frothing at the idea someone has defiled the blessed system and their trousers troubled at the idea of a Zombie Tsar who vets all films for their level of adherence to lore. Horror movies are about fear and repulsion, basic concepts twisted and rethought to be hilarious, terrifying or even both. They don’t deserve to be reduced to debates on WWE message boards about wrestlers breaking Kayfabe.
That’s why it doesn’t matter that Stephanie Meyer never read Dracula by Bram Stoker. It’s not a core text. At this stage, Vampires are an idea and the best thing about ideas is the millions of different ways you can interpret them and still have an instantly recognizable core principle. Now Twilight isn’t good: it’s a horribly written mess of Mormon propaganda. But you shouldn’t be dismiss it because it doesn’t follow a set of rules Bram Stoker and Anne Rice drew up. You should be dismiss it because it’s warping the sexual expectations of millions of young girls as badly as the proliferation of easily-accessible hardcore pornography has warped the sexual expectations of young boys, if to the opposite extreme. Kids love loads of cynically-produced, potentially-damaging, irredeemable crap. That’s why they’re kids and need adults to guide them to cool stuff, even if that usually involves being lame and liking lame stuff, thus driving kids to other thing.
Still, it must be noted that if one iteration of vampires happen to be chaste and sparkly, that doesn’t diminish the meaning or importance of what “traditional vampire fans” (“goths,” if you haven’t the time) enjoy. And it certainly shouldn’t galvanize them into donning their Bauhaus-brand helmets, climbing into their 1978 Volvos of Despair and pulling skids of pedantry all over the internet’s many comment sections. But people love crushing the things they love with dogma and if something they needn’t be paying any attention to deviates in any way, they pounce with the force of a million angry Cradle Of Filth concert-goers who have discovered there are only medium size t-shirts left.
Unlike Twilight, there’s no question of quality when it comes to Pontypool. It’s impossibly well-crafted, tense and original. It also has zombies in it that aren’t called zombies. That’s definitely what they are though. Any movie that calls their mindless hordes anything different is just trying to avoid fanboy nerdrage (but sadly, often creates even more of it).
The significance of zombies isn’t that they’re slow or even really that they used to dead. It’s that they used to be you. Zombies are human beings reduced to their most destructive, mindless incarnation. But they’re still recognizable as humans and that’s the key. Being eaten by zombies, while probably unpleasant, isn’t the most frightening part of the zombie experience. The real terror springs from the idea that other normal people, people you may very well know and love, can tear you apart at any second. And that you could do the same to them. The possibilities for this basic idea are endless. The dangers of consumerism, of crowd mentality, of grief, of anger, of denial… all of these have been illustrated perfectly through the medium of people chewing other people’s faces off.
In Pontypool normal people become murderous, mindless killers through an infection that travels in the English language. The genius of the movie is setting all the action in a small town radio station. Throughout the movie, just enough information is dangled before the cast and audience to let them know hell has come to all around them but leaves them little the wiser as to how or why. Also seeing as the infection travels through language, every person they engage with represents a serious risk.
The host of the show that happens to be on the air is Grant Mazzy, a washed-up shock jock working for a small station who suddenly finds himself at the center of the biggest story in the world. Not only does he wrestle with the same problems as his co-workers, he also finds himself living up to a shock jock’s hype in a way he probably never expected. He literally becomes the lone sane voice in the wilderness. It is also interesting to see him wrestle with being the Good Samartian and realizing that however he acts could make or break his comeback. Vetern character actor Stephen McHattie puts in amazing performance, especially considering most of the time he is acting with a telephone. Although everyone puts in real feeling and great performances, it is he upon whom the movie hinges.
And if this, the story of an odd character trapped in a bizarre situation, sounds like a “Twilight Zone” episode, it should. The minimal budget forces the filmmakers to be cagey with the amount the actually show, leaving them to create most of the horror in the minds of the audience… a classic Serling maneuver. Naturally, this economy of gore and the power of suggestion make the thing a lot more terrifying.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1HSNm9GBms
It also probably sounds a lot like a “Twlight Zone” episode because it kind of already is one. Pontypool is not the first story to feature a virus of words. “Need To Know” is an episode of the 1980s version of “Twilight Zone” in which people are being told a ‘secret’ and immediately going insane. The episode concerns the intrepid hero racing to a radio station to stop the secret being broadcast live over the air. This doesn’t lessen the achievement of Pontypool, or make it any less of a unique proposition on today’s horror landscape. All it does is serve to illustrate both how “The Twilight Zone” is the “Simpsons Did It First” of horror and suspense stories, and also how a TV show in the 80s had more original ideas in a season that current horror fare has had in a decade.
There are so many ways zombie movies could be made, and even if Pontypool was an abject failure, its bravery in taking a different tactic in illustrating the infectious and dangerous nature of language would still have been commendable. There’s no need to spelling out the point the movie makes by showing people swept up and turned into maniacs by emotive language all while a small radio station holds the last outpost of sanity steady. The movie lets you figure that out for yourself. Less hand-holding, better acting and more originality… let’s hope Pontypool acts as an example for the next generation of horror to come.
Sean McTiernan has a blog and a Twitter. So does everyone though. He also has a podcast on which he has a nervous breakdown once an episode, minimum. In other words: it’s great for the gym.