PONTYPOOL (2008) – William S. Burroughs once said that “language is a virus from outer space” and that idea gets literalized in Pontypool, the smartest zombie movie ever made. Steven McHattie (you know him from somewhere, he’s been in just about everything) plays Grant Mazzy, a morning news DJ in the tiny town of Pontypool, Ontario. He makes his way into the studio one cold and snowy morning and reads the weather report, school closings, the traffic, and then reports start coming in of mobs attacking people for no reason. Before you can say “Molsons”, Grant, his producer, and their tech guy realize that they’ve got front row seats for the end of the world. Trapped on one set, and more of a psychological drama than anything (don’t expect a lot of gore, although the little there is is handled well), the movie belongs to McHattie who is the last angry man, raging against the dying of his species. Rarely has one actor owned a movie so completely, but in Pontypool McHattie is the captain of this great, big, doomed mothership called Earth and he’s not going to go down easy. (Watch it!)
