pontypool raze a_film_you_should_see. anyone who thinks canadian films are universally shitty (and i admit, we do produce some significant stinkers) should check this one out. it's one of the most thought-provoking horror films i've seen in a long while, and it twists its low budget into an advantage, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere without much in the way of gore or special effects. the premise: a former shock jock slogs through a demoralizing job as the voice of a morning radio show in a small ontario town, with only the station manager and her technical assistant for company. his day takes a strange turn as reports start filtering in describing people developing odd speech patterns and acting out violently without any clear provocation. it becomes clear that the people are infected with something, and the virus, such as it is, is being spread through the english language, with certain words causing certain people to devolve gradually into mindless killers. it takes a lot for a movie to genuinely creep me out. psychological thrillers tend to be more capable than anything else, at least these days. this one delivers, and raises some interesting questions in the process. what if madness could be transmitted through words, but we didn't know what our trigger words were? how would we try to combat that? what would our lives be like if one of our most trusted methods of communication became something like a plague? the thing is, words are really weird things, when you really think about it. repeat one word out loud enough times, and it starts to sound like something random and altogether meaningless. if you really paid attention to the sound words made instead of their meanings, and you concentrated enough on their strangeness, or if you latched onto a specific word and fixated on the meaning attached to it, could language break down entirely in your mind? not hardly. but here's a movie that allows you to suspend that disbelief for an hour and a half, and to imagine that, maybe, something like that could happen, and it could drive everyone afflicted completely insane. it's also nice to see stephen mchattie in a leading role for a change. i always thought that guy was an underrated actor (and i always got him confused with lance henriksen, for some reason). here he gets a nice meaty role with some good dialogue to chew on. consider this opening on-air monologue: "mrs. french's cat is missing. the signs are posted all over town. 'have you seen honey?' we've all seen the posters, but nobody has seen honey the cat. nobody, until last thursday morning, when miss colette piscine swerved her car to miss honey the cat as she drove across a bridge. well, this bridge, now slightly damaged, is a bit of a local treasure and even has its own fancy name: pont de flaque. now, collette...that sounds like culotte. that's panty in french. and piscine means pool. panty pool. flaque also means pool in french. so, collette piscine — in french, panty pool — drives over the pont de flaque — the pont de pool, if you will — to avoid hitting mrs. french's cat that has been missing in pontypool. pontypool. pontypool. panty pool. pont de flaque. what does it mean? well, norman mailer, he had an interesting theory that he used to explain the strange coincidences in the aftermath of the JFK assassination. in the wake of huge events, after them and before them, physical details, they spasm for a moment. they sort of unlock. and when they come back into focus, they suddenly coincide in a weird way. street names and birth dates and middle names, all kind of superfluous things, appear related to each other. it's a ripple effect. so, what does it mean? well, it means something's going to happen. something big. but then, something's always about to happen." i know i'm in the minority, but i've always been a fan of movies that feel a little like stage plays opened up for the camera. pieces written for just a few performers, who get to riff off of one another almost like jazz musicians who might not be improvising the notes they're playing, but have personalized the *way* they're played. this has that kind of feel about it. so if you're ever in the mood for a zombie movie that isn't so much about the zombies at all, that might give you some interesting food for thought, maybe give this one a try. i'm glad i did. 130524 ... prelude the dirt roads turns off the high at a steep incline. at the top is a goat farm, and across from it a sheep pasture. 130525 what's it to you? who go blather from