There are dozens of zombie films worse than Pontypool and hardcore genre fans may find something to like, but casual aficionados of the undead should shuffle on.
Comment
05/29/09
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
Hemmed in by theatrically bound staging, "Pontypool" is an overly inflated zombie flick that makes overtures to a weighty theme of social consciousness that the screenwriters are ill-prepared to fulfill.
05/27/09
Too much jaw, not enough gore.
10/16/09
...ultimately undone by its increasingly outlandish premise...
03/06/09
Pontypool loses what easily could have been a great story.
06/18/09
...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
For a film about the perils of too much talk, there's quite a lot of babbling presented as profundity.
05/27/09
An utterly baffling and stunningly boring zombie horror thriller.
10/16/09
McDonald's limiting the action to the radio studio induces claustrophobia and then devolves into staginess.
04/23/09
If it wasn’t so boring, the dialogue would be a laugh a minute. The acting is so abominable that the cast is better off unmentioned.
05/27/09
Top CriticHowever shrewdly contrived to keep its budget low, Pontypool, set almost entirely in a basement radio station, is a zombie flick sans bite.
09/01/09
Top CriticThis 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 CriticWhat's a zombie movie without zombies? A dull zombie movie.
05/29/09
In an era of generic horror films, this has enough ideas to stand out.
10/16/09
In its best moments the film offers an entertaining throwback to the Seventies heyday of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg, when a creepy situation could be just as effective as a burst of stomach-churning special effects.
10/16/09
If you're a devotee of the deranged mind of Canadian indie auteur Bruce McDonald, then I can just tell you that he's made a horror movie (kind of) and that Pontypool is it.
06/05/09
Top CriticMcHattie and Houle are terrific as the besieged duo.
10/16/09
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
Wildly entertaining and inventive. It's a clever and thrilling combination of horror and satire.
05/31/09
Latest 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:
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