''Pontypool'' (stylized as ''POИTYPOOL'') a 2008 Canadian
horror film
Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes.
Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...
directed by
Bruce McDonald and written by
Tony Burgess, based on his novel ''
Pontypool Changes Everything
''Pontypool Changes Everything'' is the second novel in the Pontypool Trilogy, by Tony Burgess, first published in 1995.
It was adapted into the 2008 film ''Pontypool'' with a screenplay by Burgess and was nominated for a Genie Award
The G ...
''.
A
spin-off, ''
Dreamland'', was released in 2019.
, a direct sequel, ''Pontypool Changes'', has been repeatedly teased (2009 for 2010 release, 2012 for 2013 release, and 2018 for 2019 release) as supposedly being in active development over the past 13 years.
Plot
In the small town of
Pontypool, Ontario
Pontypool is an unincorporated village within the southernmost part of the amalgamated city of Kawartha Lakes, Ontario.
Prior to amalgamation, Pontypool was an unincorporated village within the township of Manvers, in the county of Victoria.
It ...
,
radio announcer
An announcer is a voice artist who relays information to the audience of a broadcast media programme or live event.
Television and other media
Some announcers work in television production, radio or filmmaking, usually providing narrations, ...
Grant Mazzy is accosted by a nonsensical woman who repeats the word "blood" several times before staggering away.
At the radio station, Grant's
shock jock
A shock jock is a radio broadcaster or DJ who entertains listeners and attracts attention using humor and/or melodramatic exaggeration that may offend some portion of the listening audience. The term is used pejoratively to describe provocative o ...
style and on-air persona entertain his technical assistant, Laurel-Ann, while irritating his station manager, Sydney. Helicopter reporter Ken Loney calls in with a report about a riot at the office of Dr. Jon Mendez that has resulted in numerous deaths. After Ken is unexpectedly cut off, the group tries to confirm his report, but their witnesses are disconnected before being put on the airwaves. After they are contacted by the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board ex ...
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breaking the story, Ken calls back and says he has taken refuge in a grain silo. He describes the rioters as trying to eat one another or even themselves. When one of the rioters attacks the silo, Ken's call is interrupted by an audio transmission in French.
Laurel-Ann translates the transmission, which is an instruction to remain indoors, not to use
terms of endearment
''Terms of Endearment'' is a 1983 American family comedy-drama film directed, written, and produced by James L. Brooks, adapted from Larry McMurtry's 1975 novel of the same name. It stars Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine, Jack Nicholson, Danny De ...
, rhetorical discourse, or the English language and not to translate the message. Pontypool is declared to be under quarantine. Ken calls back again and gets his phone close enough to his attacker so that his murmurs of "Help me" in a baby-like voice are audible. A horde of people attack the radio station, and Grant, Sydney, and Laurel-Ann lock themselves inside. Meanwhile, Laurel-Ann begins repeating the word "missing" and imitates the sound of a tea kettle.
Dr. Mendez arrives at the radio station through a window and hides with Grant and Sydney in the soundproof booth. Ken calls in and, while on the air, succumbs to the virus. Laurel-Ann begins to slam her head against the sound booth's window and chews off her lower lip. Mendez hypothesizes that a virus has infected certain words in the English language; only certain words infect certain people who then find another infected person to kill themselves with. Sydney receives a call from her children, only to hear them becoming infected. Outside the booth, Laurel-Ann vomits a large amount of blood and falls down, dead. Mendez suspects this has happened since she failed to find a victim.
The horde then breaks into the radio station, attacking the sound booth. Sydney draws the mob outside with a looped recording of Grant's voice saying 'Sydney Briar is alive". When he fears that he is about to succumb to the virus, Dr. Mendez begins to speak in Armenian upon realizing that the virus is exclusive to the English language, which prevents the virus from taking over. When the recording fails, the mob returns but Mendez lures them away, saving Sydney and Grant, who now lock themselves in the equipment room.
While Grant tries to figure out how to reverse the symptom, Sydney begins to succumb to the word "kill". Grant convinces her that the word "kill" now means "kiss" and her symptoms subside. Hoping to stop the virus, the pair go on the air, spouting a series of self-contradicting and confusing phrases to help their infected listeners, ignoring warnings from the authorities who are trying to get them off the air. While an amplified voice from outside counts down from ten, Sydney joins Grant in the booth and they kiss. An explosion can be heard when the film cuts to black.
Over the black, news reports of further outbreaks of the virus suggest that the quarantine failed, spread by the news itself and eventually reaching
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
, the source of its targeted language. In a
post-credits scene
A post-credits scene (commonly referred to as a stinger or credit cookie) or mid-credits scene is a short clip that appears after all or some of the closing credits have rolled and sometimes after a production logo of a film, TV series, or video g ...
, Sydney and Grant (now known as "Lisa" and "Johnny Deadeyes") survive the virus and continue speaking English by maintaining a system of improvisational roleplay as the screen shifts from black and white to color.
Alternative ending (radio play)
Whilst the radio play version of the story changes a few features, such as the more visual elements being restyled for audio or removed all together; it also features an alternative ending. In this ending when Grant convinces Sydney that "kill" now means "kiss" she asks Grant to "kiss" her (in the film version she says "kill" leading to them kissing).
Soon after when broadcasting his own obituaries of Laurel-Ann and Mendez (who Grant assumes will meet his demise eventually), he confirms the death of Sydney, implying that he "kissed" her at her request.
Grant, now completely alone, realises that he has become infected through the word "paper". Resigned to his fate, he allows himself to be taken by the word, repeating it over and over again, before finally uttering one different word: "trap".
Cast
Production
''Pontypool'' is based on Tony Burgess' novel ''
Pontypool Changes Everything
''Pontypool Changes Everything'' is the second novel in the Pontypool Trilogy, by Tony Burgess, first published in 1995.
It was adapted into the 2008 film ''Pontypool'' with a screenplay by Burgess and was nominated for a Genie Award
The G ...
''. Burgess adapted the material for the screen himself. According to McDonald, the writer hashed out a script in 48 hours.
Orson Welles
George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...
' infamous
radio broadcast of ''The War of the Worlds'' inspired the approach that they decided to take.
It was simultaneously produced as a motion picture and a
radio play
Radio drama (or audio drama, audio play, radio play, radio theatre, or audio theatre) is a dramatized, purely acoustic performance. With no visual component, radio drama depends on dialogue, music and sound effects to help the listener imagine t ...
.
Filming took place in
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
,
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
, rather than in
Pontypool
Pontypool ( cy, Pont-y-pŵl ) is a town and the administrative centre of the county borough of Torfaen, within the historic boundaries of Monmouthshire in South Wales. It has a population of 28,970.
Location
It is situated on the Afon Lwyd ri ...
itself.
At ''Rue Morgue''s 2008 Festival of Fear expo, director Bruce McDonald stressed the victims of the virus detailed in the film were not
zombie
A zombie (Haitian French: , ht, zonbi) is a mythological undead corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of a corpse. Zombies are most commonly found in horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore, in whic ...
s and called them "conversationalists". He described the stages of the disease:
There are three stages to this virus. The first stage is you might begin to repeat a word. Something gets stuck. And usually it's words that are terms of endearment like sweetheart or honey. The second stage is your language becomes scrambled and you can't express yourself properly. The third stage you become so distraught at your condition that the only way out of the situation you feel, as an infected person, is to try and chew your way through the mouth of another person.
According to McDonald, the final scene of Grant and Sydney, now presented in a
kicker
Kicker or The Kicker may refer to:
Sports
* Placekicker, a position in American and Canadian football
* ''Kicker'' (sports magazine), in Germany
* Kicker, the German colloquial term for an association football player
* Kicker, the word used i ...
, was originally placed before the credits. However, audiences in early screenings found the original ending to be too confusing, so the scene was moved behind the credits instead.
Release
''
Rue Morgue'' and ''ChiZine Publications'' held a special screening of ''Pontypool'' on 3 December 2009 at the Toronto Underground Cinema and following the screening, it featured a Q&A with Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, and Tony Burgess.
The film was released theatrically in Canada on March 6, 2009. The film was released on
DVD
The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...
and
Blu-ray
The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...
on 25 January 2010.
Reception
''Pontypool'' received generally positive reviews from critics, currently holding an 84% rating on
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
based on 86 reviews; the consensus states: "Witty and restrained but still taut and funny, this ''Pontypool'' is a different breed of low-budget zombie film." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
, which uses an average of critics' reviews, the film has a rating of 54/100, indicating "mixed or average reviews".
In 2018,
Consequence of Sound
''Consequence'' (previously ''Consequence of Sound'') is an independently owned New York-based online magazine featuring news, editorials, and reviews of music, movies, and television. In addition, the website also features the Festival Outlook ...
ranked ''Pontypool'' the 42nd "Scariest Movie Ever Made".
Consequence of Sound
/ref>
Accolades
* 30th Genie Awards
The 30th Genie Awards were presented on April 12, 2010 to honour films released in 2009.[sequel
A sequel is a work of literature, film, theatre, television, music or video game that continues the story of, or expands upon, some earlier work. In the common context of a narrative work of fiction, a sequel portrays events set in the same ...]
, ''Pontypool Changes'', has been repeatedly teased (2009 for 2010 release, 2012 for 2013 release, and 2018 for 2019 release) as supposedly being in active development over the previous 13 years.
In May 2009, ''Pontypool Changes'' was confirmed to be in development, with McDonald returning as director for production in 2010. In July 2012, a teaser poster for the film was released at the Fantasia Film Festival
Fantasia International Film Festival (also known as Fantasia-fest, FanTasia, and Fant-Asia) is a film festival that has been based mainly in Montreal since its founding in 1996. Regularly held in July of each year, it is valued by both hardcore ...
, with an intended release date of 2013. In April 2018, McDonald and Burgess revealed that their film '' Dreamland'', which ultimately saw release in 2019, would be a spin-off of ''Pontypool'' serving as "a sequel to the ilm's post-credit non-sequitur scene, with McHattie and Houle" reprising their roles. Burgess additionally confirmed that ''Pontypool Changes'', also known as ''Typo Chan'', would follow the English language virus passing into the written word, would feature McHattie and Houle reprising their roles, and would go into production by 2019.
References
External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Pontypool (Film)
2008 films
2008 horror films
2008 science fiction films
2000s thriller films
Canadian psychological horror films
2000s mystery horror films
Canadian science fiction horror films
Canadian horror thriller films
English-language Canadian films
Films directed by Bruce McDonald
Films based on Canadian novels
Films set in Ontario
Films shot in Toronto
Canadian independent films
2000s science fiction horror films
2000s monster movies
Films about viral outbreaks
French-language Canadian films
2000s Canadian films
2000s English-language films
2000s French-language films
2008 multilingual films
Canadian multilingual films
Canadian mystery horror films