I almost did it. I was in my car a couple of weekends ago on my way to theater to see Paranormal Activity when it hit me. I had absolutely no damn desire to see that movie. All the hype had gotten to me, and I nearly succumbed to it in a very mindless-automaton sort of way. In fact the only justification for going was to do a review here on the Barrow, and I figured WTF. Go see it if you want to because I ain’t shelling out 9 bucks plus popcorn for a home movie. So I came home, read The Movie Spoiler for it, was damn glad I skipped it, and instead watched a couple of zombie movies I’d been meaning to watch. Let me share those with you instead because I can, at the very least, recommend a rental on both.
First up is the thinking person’s zombie movie. Pontypool is a 2009 Canadian horror film directed by Bruce McDonald and adapted by Tony Burgess from his own novel Pontypool Changes Everything. The story is about “Shock Jock” Grant Mazzy (Genre veteran Stephen McHattie who can most recently be seen as Captain Michaels in “2012”) who has been fired from the Big City airwaves and now works at the only job available to him – hosting the early morning show at CLSY Radio, which broadcasts from the basement of the small town’s only church, in Pontypool, Ontario. It’s another day of school bus cancellations due to yet another massive snow storm as well as public service announcements on Mazzy’s shift. Mazzy tries in vain to be himself on air as he is constantly being reigned in by his Producer Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle). It’s just another boring small town day until things turn ominous when reports of people having bizarre seizures, developing strange speech patterns, and committing horrendous acts of violence start flooding the phone lines. Before long, Mazzy and the small staff at CLSY find themselves trapped in the radio station as they discover that this insane behavior taking over the town is actually a deadly virus being spread through the English language itself. (I’d have figured French being the choice language of communicable diseases myself)
The movie’s tagline “Shut up or die” says it all. Do they stay on the air in the hopes of being rescued while providing information to the terrified residents of Pontypool, or is their own broadcast a means for this computer virus of the human brain to propagate.
This movie is a zombie flick despite statements from the director that it’s not; McDonald called the infected “conversationalists”, but when a deadly virus spreads through the populace causing them to go on a rampage and chomp on victims this equals zombie movie to me. While there are a few problems with the story – for example the reaction of the military which to me seemed a bit slow despite their breaking into Mazzy’s broadcast with a French message explaining the disease and what to avoid – overall I really liked this movie. It reminded me of the War of the Worlds Broadcast because nearly all the action for most of the movie takes place outside the camera in the audience member’s minds; saves money on special effects budgets too. We are witness to it happening over the telephone and experience it through the radio station employees reactions to it – at least until it finally infects one of their own, and this I believe can be far more horrifying than any CGI monster or exploding zombie.
Pontypool was well-acted and the tight dialog developed the story as well as the characters. There was enough gore toward the last third of the movie to satiate most zombiephiles (you finally get your exploding zombie) as well as plenty of tense moments too. For instance when field reporter Ken Loney (Rick Roberts) in his “Sunshine Chopper” helicopter (actually just his Dodge Dart with sound effects) describes a riot at Dr. Mendez’s (Hrant Alianak) office and eventually has to run for his life, hide from the infected, and ultimately succumbs to the disease himself. We never see Loney’s plight on camera as all the action is related to Mazzy over the telephone. This works well for building amazingly tense scenes and should make the lovers of a good suspense story satisfied as well, and somehow makes it seem more real in my opinion. The ending was a bit odd – especially if you watch the final scene all the way at the end of the credits – as Mazzy finally understands how to “cure” the disease and tries to broadcast that information, but I’d still say this movie is worth a purchase.
Now turn off your frontal lobes for this next zombie flick; maybe leave enough on to read the subtitles I suppose so you don’t miss any of the low-brow humor. Check the trailer above to see what I mean. If you can’t see the trailer in Facebook or in your email then click Zombie Double Feature to view it.
Dead Snow is a horror flick about an army of restless and surprisingly neatly uniformed undead WWII German army zombies creeping about some secluded woods in contemporary Norway. Set in a remote winter wonderland to accentuate the vivid contrast between all the blinding white snow and the copious gore, the story involves a group of Norwegian medical students, who remark at the beginning of the movie how many horror flicks start with a bunch of kids going to a remote cabin, on a wintry vacation that is doomed to become a deep shade of red. Director, Tommy Wirkola, who wrote the screenplay with Stig Frode Henriksen, sometimes misses the mark with Dead Snow when they can’t seem to make up their mind whether the movie should be serious terror or ridiculous camp, but what the frak. I told you to turn off your frontal lobes didn’t I?
Dead Snow shouldn’t be taken all that damn serious. If you’re thinking about things like why the girl’s family who owns this cabin with Nazi gold under the floor boards has never been attacked before or just how these soldiers come back from the dead in the first place then you’re missing all the fun. Make it through to the end and not only will you experience a chainsaw filled bloodbath but also the only sex scene I’ve ever witnessed set in an outhouse. Yes, I said an outhouse, and right after one of the characters takes a dump. You would think Norwegian Medical students would know more about basic hygiene.
I wouldn’t buy Dead Snow – in fact Amazon thinks it isn’t even available yet though I rented it from Blockbuster – but it certainly is worth tossing into your favorite online rental cue. A lot of folks have ridiculed this movie online, but c’mon people. Zombie Nazis! That’s worth a rental for sure.
