PONTYPOOL

Thu 11th August | 6:30pm | Factory Theatre

Dir: Bruce McDonald, Canada, 2008, 93 min | Cast: Stephen McHattie, Georgina Reilly, Lisa Houle

“Shut up or die” is the tagline of this witty contagion thriller in which words can truly kill…

As part of our focus on Bruce McDonald, we flash back to the maverick filmmaker’s cult hit Pontypool. In a church basement studio, washed-up shock jock Grant Mazzy (the magnetic Stephen McHattie) broadcasts his caustic, whiskey-soaked radio show. This wintry valentine’s day however, reports come in that the residents of Pontypool, Ontario, are turning into predatory cannibals. The show’s skeleton crew soon discover the epidemic is spread… by language: by reporting on the virus on the air, is Grant actually spreading it?

Pontypool is not just tense, claustrophobic and darkly comic, it’s also a very smart, post-modern take a genre that refuses to die. Philosophical references abound (from Roland Barthes to Ionesco’s Rhinoceros) but you don’t need a degree in semiotics to appreciate its gory violence, gripping suspense and subversive commentary on journalistic responsibility.

“A small Canadian horror film that makes the most of its minuscule budget… The notion that we are all being driven mad by an incessant verbal deluge makes nasty comic sense.” The NY Times