With any luck, it will develop the cult it deserves because while its urgency makes it an easy target, Pontypool’s new ideas are commendably gripping.
Comment
06/03/09
Pontypool (2009)
82
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:71
Fresh:58
Rotten:13
Average Rating:6.6/10
Consensus: Witty and restrained but still taut and funny, this Pontypool is a different breed of low-budget zombie film.
Theatrical Release:May 29, 2009 Limited
Synopsis: It’s not just the snow storm that’s chilling in this Canadian zombie movie from director Bruce McDonald (THE TRACEY FRAGMENTS). Stephen McHattie (WATCHMEN) stars as controversy-courting radio DJ... [More]
Starring: Stephen McHattie, Lisa Houle, Hrant Alianak, Georgina Reilly
Director: Bruce McDonald
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Reviews for Pontypool
I have to give kudos to McDonald and Burgess for refreshing the zombie genre in ways I never thought possible.
06/23/09
For a film about the perils of too much talk, there's quite a lot of babbling presented as profundity.
05/27/09
Top CriticBruce McDonald directs a tiptop cast. Tony Burgess, scripting from his own novel, clearly saw the grand guignol potential in the computer virus, in the way great plagues can be planted in tiny units of understanding.
10/16/09
The latest evidence that you don't need a lot of money to make an effectively chilling horror movie.
05/29/09
This is the sort of film that warrants a second viewing.
10/12/09
This unsettlingly quirky account of semiological breakdown and small-town apocalypse plays like My Winnipeg for fans of intellectual horror. Pontypool is as astonishing as it is original, and amply repays multiple viewings.
10/16/09
throws up so many Freudian slips, mixed metaphors and free-associative leaps that in the end the main characters' (and our own) grip on reality comes unstuck, and the unfolding apocalypse takes on a positively Saussurean aspect.
09/07/09
An utterly baffling and stunningly boring zombie horror thriller.
10/16/09
...poses some interesting ethical issues on the responsibility of the media, but like many a Stephen King novel ("Insomnia" comes to mind), solid characters and a great build are undone by a silly underlying premise.
05/16/09
This is one of those little films that proves that you don't need a blockbuster budget to make a high-concept movie. McDonald and Burgess create a mass-chaos apocalyptic thriller with essentially just three characters in a windowless room.
10/16/09
Pontypool is ultimately a testament to its frequently besieged director's audacity and vision.
03/06/09
Top CriticA masterclass in building horror atmosphere. Finally, it's a zombie film with the one thing zombies have been crying out for all these years: BRRAAAIIINNNSS.
10/16/09
Riddled with nail-biting tension and scenes that are quite simply scary as hell, Pontypool as of now is on my best of list for 2009.
03/27/09
Ignore the shaky tongue-tied opening fifteen minutes; when Pontypool gets its words in order it reminds you how much creepy fun can be had in keeping the horror tantalisingly offscreen.
10/16/09
It's perfectly modulated horror of the imagination, à la Orson Welles' adaptation of The War of the Worlds, with potent ideas about what corrupts, inspires, subverts, and engages us.
06/05/09
Sometimes gets bogged down in its own weirdness, but a genuinely unique piece of horror filmmaking.
05/28/09
Pontypool is, in all senses, brain food -- and juicy.
05/26/09
Top CriticToo much jaw, not enough gore.
10/16/09
This low-budget picture is a little too claustrophobic, and it grows tedious. The ominous, overbearing musical score tries but fails to jack up the tension.
12/17/09
Top CriticLatest News for Pontypool
May 28, 2009:
Critics Consensus: Up And Drag Me to Hell Are Certified Fresh
This week at the movies, we've got a high-flying house (Up, with voice work by Ed Asner and Christopher Plummer) and a demonic curse (Drag Me to Hell, starring Alison Lohman and... More...
May 10, 2009:
Trailer & Poster review 
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