Pontypool (2008)
Few films today do so much with so little. Filmed over a two-week period on a shoestring budget, Canadian Director Bruce McDonald makes the most of what’s available to him by creating Pontypool, a horror film written by Tony Burgess, set in the sleepy town of Pontypool, Ontario.
Join Feargenics hosts Kelton & Alex in our premiere episode, as we recount the story of a small radio station in Pontypool discovering that their town is overrun with zombies from a language-borne virus. Will they survive? Find out in this episode of Feargenics!
Episode Transcript:
Alex 0:12
Hello, and welcome to Feargenics. I'm Alex,
Kelton 0:16
I'm Kelton
Alex 0:17
and today we are taking a look at the 2008 Canadian movie Pontypool
Kelton 0:22
panty pool. Pump booth, Huck
Alex 0:24
the flock.
Kelton 0:26
Did you like it?
Alex 0:27
It was okay. It was a I'm admittedly not the biggest horror fan, but I enjoyed the movie.
Kelton 0:33
It's, it's a weird one. I mean, I feel like you kind of have to appreciate horror and all its forms before you can watch something this abstract, and obtuse, and appreciate it.
Alex 0:43
In many ways. It's not actually outside of my wheelhouse in terms of movies I enjoy. But I think something that made it a little bit more unusual for me is that it's pretty low budget, it's a lower budget than most movies, I watch that
Kelton 0:56
1.5 million, I'd say they make that budget stretch, though. I mean, it really doesn't at any point, feel like you're sacrificing quality to make to save money. It is all in one location for you know, 99% of the movie. But I don't think that hurts it. I honestly think it makes it stronger by really built the movie around it being in one location, and you're kind of trapped in this radio station.
Alex 1:21
Yeah, in many ways, I think the constraints sort of made the movie better. I think there were a few compromises, namely, the zombies are not as impressive as I think zombies could be in a higher budget movie.
Kelton 1:33
They are pretty, pretty slow and dumb and weak, and not very scary. But they mean they killed one person, I think in the entire movie.
Alex 1:42
Yeah, well, at least at least some of them are slow. There's one or two that have a little bit of speed at him. I'm curious. How many times have you watched this movie now?
Kelton 1:50
Including, last night, when I watched the director's commentary? That puts it at seven, seven times I've watched this film.
Alex 1:59
Oh my, you know what's funny is when we started this project, I hadn't seen the movie. But now that we're recording it, I think I've seen it five times, I've nearly caught up.
Kelton 2:08
How did the fifth watch compared to your first watch, very
Alex 2:11
different. When you watch a movie over and over, you don't even pay attention to the same things. The things I was looking at in the first movie are not at all what I was looking at the last day,
Kelton 2:21
when the first watch, you're trying to understand the story, you're trying to understand what's going on. You're trying to know what the characters are saying. Like you need to read what they're saying on subtitles sometimes. So it's not like you're fully engrossed in the movie. But by the third or fourth watch. You understand the story, you know exactly the key points that the movie is going to hit. And you can look at all the tertiary details surrounding it, like, you know, certain lines that stand out certain actions. foreshadowing, yeah, you can
Alex 2:51
get a really good look at the performances, or even details like the way they introduce the different characters in this movie. It's done with just one or two lines of exposition, which I think was done for the purpose of the audio version of this movie, which we'll talk about later. But it was an interesting choice. You don't see that in a lot of movies. This one had a little bit more tell rather than show. But it was necessary for this story. And I think it worked. Okay, absolutely. So before we get too far into this conversation, I want to go ahead and recap the movie. This movie starts Steve McCatty as grant Massey, a Mr. Massey, Mr. Massey, a DJ, like a stereotypical you turn on the radio right now. You'll probably hear somebody just like him on the radio. He's sort of a no holds barred tell all old man with a deep voice on the radio. It's kind of an asshole to Yeah, he's an asshole. He's a bit of a rebel. He's constantly fighting with us.
Kelton 3:44
He doesn't like the police doesn't like the government. Yes, all of that very fringe man.
Alex 3:50
So he's rolling into work. And we're introduced to Laurel and Drummond, played by Georgina Riley,
Kelton 3:56
who she's Yvette.
Alex 3:57
She's a vet in the movie. And it's sort of hinted out a few times that they later in the movie, they talk about her having PTSD for just one line. It's very strange,
Kelton 4:06
actually missed that, like my first two or three watches. So it has very small minute detail, zero burying
Alex 4:12
on the story, but an interesting choice. Laura land gives him a bottle of whiskey, which is where we learn first about Graham's drinking problem on the show. The bottle of whiskey is I would say almost a character throughout the whole movie.
Kelton 4:25
Now the gift of the whiskey Dino. You know why she gave him that gift. It's Valentine's Day so he could drink himself to death on Valentine's Day cuz he's a lonely bitter old man, probably. Man. I can't think of a sweeter gift. Just to get drunk in this recording booth of a radio station of Valentine's Day where you talk about school closures.
Alex 4:45
We're not talking about school closures.
Kelton 4:47
I wish he talked about school closures people got to get to school.
Alex 4:52
What we're referencing here is after grant gets his bottle of whiskey and sits down in his studio to begin recording for the day were introduced. Students producer, Sidney Brier, who is played by Lisa Howe, and Sydney and grant have they butt heads throughout the movie. The producer Sydney wants him to say things like school closures, just normal radio things.
Kelton 5:15
It's pretty classic example of the talent versus producer dichotomy of the producer just wants to get through the random show just wants to get the information out and have a good radio station broadcast. Whereas Grant mazzy, he's the talent. He's a little avant garde. He's a little left field, and he likes to speak his mind even whenever he's supposed to be talking about something as simple and easy as school closures.
Alex 5:42
Yes, and we get a sense that this is actually grants, maybe not first day, but definitely he's new to the job. They don't quite know each other. And he is still trying to establish who he is on the station as well as the station trying to like wrangle who he is so they don't offending everybody on the radio.
Kelton 5:58
As with any new workplace, you kind of have to settle in, you have to get used to who you're around and they have to get used to you.
Alex 6:05
So for the first 20 minutes of the film, we basically just have grant and Sydney butting heads with whirlen in the background sort of being like the smart producer handling all the technical stuff. Eventually we get a call from a guy named Ken Loney, what was his what's the actor's name?
Kelton 6:20
Rick Roberts.
Alex 6:21
Ken Loney is in the sunshine chopper reporting on the weather, which grant immediately thinks is suspicious that there's a chopper up and when the movie is a pretty bad snowstorm.
Movie 6:32
I walk we go to Ken Loney, in the sunshine chopper. It's always brighter above the clouds grant. Hey, Ken, how you doing? I would think that bird up there. You got to stay in that bird up there during the storm. Yes, sir. Yep, sorry. Wow, I think can be saved. Is that safe? Can I be up here grant?
Kelton 6:53
Not good fine weather.
Alex 6:54
Well, at the beginning of the movie, we're talking about school closures. So it's bad enough that people in Canada who are used to snow are not going to school? Yes. Very bad weather.
Kelton 7:02
I mean, you saw grant driving in the morning on his way to work. It did not look good. No,
Alex 7:07
it looked very bad. So when we're introduced to Ken, he is telling us about a well first he just gives us the
Kelton 7:14
weather. Yep. Very, very normal kin sunshine chopper conversation,
Alex 7:19
we get a baseline Ken. And as the story goes, we end up getting another phone call from Ken where it seems to be a large group of people have gathered around a doctor's office here in Pontypool the office of a doctor Mendez.
Kelton 7:31
And this is very strange for a small Canadian town, a lot of a horde of people outside of a doctor's office, basically beating the door down. And at
Alex 7:40
this point, the illusion of Ken being in the chopper breaks. Because Ken has actually as Sidney says in his Dodge Dart, making helicopter sounds and the illusion breaks because Ken is suddenly fearing for his life he needs to get out of there. And that's our first sense in the movie that something has gone terribly wrong.
Kelton 7:57
For the first half of the movie, Ken is definitely the guy who pushes the bad things happening. Ken calls in every time it gets progressively worse and worse. He calls it first tells the to the weather calls and again talks about the doctor's office being raided by a horde of people then he calls a third time and he's basically hiding in a grain silo. Yeah, he's
Alex 8:18
hiding in a grain silo with what appears to be well we can't see it. But what he describes as a man whose hands are missing, he has stumps on his hands. He's bloody and he's sort of babbling incoherently. But before we go any further, I want to just sort of talk about the way the movie is framed at this point, we never see Ken, we're inside the studio the whole time. He calls in Yes. But from an editing standpoint, it's really interesting. Ken is basically just a waveform on one of the pieces of equipment in the studio. And we're using that to generate reaction shots from every other character. It's really fascinating how we have basically a waveform telling us the story, and for maybe five minutes, we just have characters reacting to the waveform.
Kelton 9:01
It's a very uncommon decision in a movie, I feel like for a character to be important and moving along the plot. While we also don't know what he looks like to any way, shape or form
Alex 9:14
No. And in fact, basically the entirety of the first part of the movie takes place outside of the studio, the zombie outbreak, all the phone calls, we're getting it from the radio jockey perspective, and not quite from the listeners perspective, because we can see what's happening in the studio, but very close to what you would know if you were just listening to Radio 660 and Pontypool that morning, you really
Kelton 9:35
do feel like you're along for the ride with grant and the team at the studio because the information that they're getting, you're also getting at the same exact time. So you and the the audience and grant and everyone else are all trying to figure out what the hell is going on at Pawnee bullet the same exact time. One of
Alex 9:53
my favorite moments actually punctuates Ken's phone call about the man in the grain silo, Ken is delivering dialogue about the boy in that silo and how his hands are missing when his phone call is interrupted by a police broadcast, or maybe a military broadcast in French. And none of the characters at this moment sort of speak French except for Laurel Lamb who immediately starts transcribing it's it sounds like official, scary military radio thing. like something's obviously wrong if you're hearing this
Kelton 10:25
military intervention has stepped in to deal with whatever is going on at Pontypool the small town of Pontypool Yes, we're nothing ever. Nothing bad ever happened.
Alex 10:36
So Orlan translates this message and gives it to grant and it basically says stay in your homes, there's a quarantine in effect. And the message ends, as grant says, and don't translate this into English.
Movie 10:50
for greater safety, please avoid the English language. Please do not translate this message.
Alex 11:01
And you could see the fear in Grant's eyes as he realizes he just
Kelton 11:05
he just the words that he wasn't supposed to speak.
Alex 11:09
Exactly. And this is our first inclination that the virus is connected to language, I think at this point,
Kelton 11:14
it's a very interesting concept. And we'll talk about it more once we kind of figure it out fully. But the fact that this zombie virus is transmitted via the English language is something that is absolutely bizarre I've never seen in any kind of movie before, especially a zombie horror movie. No,
Alex 11:34
I don't think I've seen anything that has quite this premise. It's fascinating and horrifying once you see how it actually takes hold in people, which we do pretty soon, right? Yeah. So once Ken gets on the phone, and tells us about the boy in the silo, the movie sort of hits the gas for the remainder. I think, once we find out about the zombies and the people and sort of discover what they're capable of, we see it for ourselves. For the first time in the movie, there's
Kelton 12:01
a lot that happens. Right after that message is transcribed by Grant, the doctor who had his office completely overwhelmed by people crawls across the frozen expanse of Pontypool and opens a window and the radio station and crawls through this
Alex 12:21
document does the goofiest character in the entire movie. His entrance is truly ridiculous. The way he crawls through the movie, it's like it's acted comedically, like this wasn't like a struggle for him to like, crawl in his hands, his knees and like pop open through the window. It's like he does it so effortlessly, and he just sort of rolls in and he knows exactly what to
Kelton 12:41
do. And he jumped straight up and he's ready to explain this virus and tell everyone what's going on. Truly, he is a cartoon character. Yes,
Alex 12:50
which makes it so much like contrast the tragedy that's happening at the same time as Laura lamb is taken by the virus,
Kelton 12:57
Laurel and at the same time as Dr. Mendez climbing through this window and being an absolute fool Laura land is standing in one corner of the room mimicking the sound of a teapot that is ready.
Alex 13:10
Now before she does that she delivers a few lines of dialogue where we can see her her words start to get confusing. And she's saying things that she doesn't mean she doesn't understand why.
Kelton 13:19
So it's a very interesting concept, like I said, of a virus taking root via the English language. And more or less what happens when this virus takes hold, is that it disconnects the brain from the body. You might be saying something, but it's not actually what your brain is telling you to say. There's a very interesting note that the director Bruce gave Georgina, the actor for laureline. For this scene, basically what's happening is she's speaking as the virus takes hold. And she's trying to say that Mr. Massey is missing and that she has to find Mr. Massey,
Alex 13:56
Mr. mazzy being Grant mazzy the host. And as she's
Kelton 13:59
saying this, she starts to stumble, she starts to stutter, she can't say what she's trying to say. Now in order to accomplish this, in order to make the transition from a normal person to a zombie look like something was taking place. The director wrote two sets of dialogue for Laura lamb, one of what she's trying to say, and one of what she actually says in the film, which is a bunch of rambling stutters and mumbles and random words and then all of it comes to a head once she realizes she can't actually say the word she's supposed to say and she claps her hand over her mouth basically stopping all communication signal missing
Movie 14:42
is missing isn't Miss I mean, I mean Mr. Massey, Mr. Massey's missing is in here. Oh, honey is in sell books. Yeah, I know. I just I mean it go
Alex 15:01
That's really the last time we see Laura LAN as herself. It takes over very quickly. I'd say and maybe time maybe 15 seconds,
Kelton 15:10
and then Dr. Mendez and Sydney retreat into the recording booth.
Alex 15:15
Yes. Dr. Mendez rolls on. He's like, I've seen this before. And he takes Sydney and they go to the recording booth, where Dr. Mendez becomes basically a co host of the show. Now this whole time grant is on air, basically informing Pontypool about what's going on. And once Dr. Mendez sits down, we get into this sort of the puzzle of what's happening starts to reveal itself because Dr. Mendez has all of the answers.
Kelton 15:40
Dr. Mendez is a pretty old time plot device. In a movie where basically a trope becomes in he has all the answers to all the questions that everyone in the film has had. And he's there to answer him.
Alex 15:55
Yeah, I read a quote from Bruce McDonald, that it's basically intentional. He just wanted that sort of aspect in his film, which I personally didn't love the way it was included. But you know, it's okay.
Kelton 16:08
It's very wacky, it's very Goofy, it comes out of left field. And wherever you thought the movie was going before, it instantly takes a left turn
Alex 16:18
very much so that the movie reveals itself, sort of the puzzle of what's going on relatively early into the movie. I think at this point, we're maybe 40 minutes into an hour and a half movie
Kelton 16:29
and it goes very quick after that. The next hour goes by probably just as fast as the first 30 minutes.
Alex 16:36
Oh, yeah, well, I would say it pumps on the brakes a little bit once they get locked in a room, right? But before we get there, we see Laura Lam, sort of lose herself and start to bang her body against the window as she tries to break in and presumably kill the rest of Sydney and grant and Dr. Mendez.
Kelton 16:57
What Mendez explains that laureline is going through is she's basically a crude radio signal at that point. She's chasing sound she's chasing some kind of transmission some kind of frequency something that is vocalized that she can pick up and consume and I guess the word that that Mr. Mendez use or Dr. Mendez use was suicide into
Alex 17:23
Yeah, he describes them as looking for somebody to suicide into and if they can't find somebody to suicide into does He say they suicide into themselves a
Kelton 17:30
suicide into themselves
Alex 17:32
just such a strange phrase.
Kelton 17:35
I can't say I've ever seen anyone suicided themselves before.
Alex 17:39
I think this is the point where we start to get a lot more traditional horror elements. You can't really tell in the movie but it's mentioned in the audio version of this that Laura Lynn as Kelton says is looking for like waves like sound waves and she starts destroying audio equipment by chewing on it and eating on it. She's Her face is really torn up at this point, her
Kelton 17:59
mouth is all bloody, there's blood dripping down her chin, and as she
Alex 18:03
slams her face into this sort of glass studio box, it's just starting to get covered more
Kelton 18:08
and more with blood. It gets pretty nasty. Towards the end, it gets incredibly nasty. It basically becomes like a mural of just dried blood stuck on this clear partition in a recording booth.
Alex 18:21
We can see Laurel and getting more and more frantic as this happens to the point where she knocks herself out pretty much at one point also the floor gets up and then she stands in front of the window and like pukes and when I say puke I don't mean like normal puke. It's like she's throwing up her guts.
Kelton 18:37
Like it was an entire like a geyser erupted out of this woman and her guts and blood and puke just flies all over this built this this screen right in front of them. Which
Alex 18:50
is pretty tragic because I think out of every character in the movie, Laura Lamb has been the most grounded and lovable character.
Kelton 18:56
Absolutely. There's actually literally nothing that we have seen as an audience to to not like Laurel and Drummond. She literally her first few seconds on screen, she gives grant a gift. And this is the character that not only dies guys first,
Alex 19:15
and I would argue dies worst compared to everybody else.
Kelton 19:19
It's horrifying. What a what an awful way to go for like such a lovable character.
Alex 19:24
So as she is banging her body against the window, the studio begins to fill with the rest of the townspeople, presumably under the effects of this virus. So by the time laureline is dead, the studio is absolutely packed full of zombies by break
Kelton 19:38
in. They basically break like to Windows and open doors, and it's overwhelmed with zombies. Yes, like 10 zombies and I
Alex 19:47
would say this is where the low budget starts to shows because the makeup on the zombies is pretty bad. It looks like a bunch of people
Kelton 19:53
they went to Dollar General and then they went on the Halloween aisle and they bought some fake blood and Like some really gross, like fake skin makeup
Alex 20:02
and I think even the glass breaking shows the low budget because it's not like a big pane of glass that's breaking it's like these little windows of glass and like a door and it's like maybe they bought like five that were able to be punched through like it's
Kelton 20:15
a break like two or three of these little window panes. Yeah, they don't even break all of them like they can't even like and no windows break like no big piece of glass breaks. I'd say that whole scene cost them like 200 bucks.
Alex 20:26
You know what's hilarious? Now I'm thinking about it. There is absolutely zero destruction of property anywhere in this movie, presumably because this was shot on an actual location. This is
Kelton 20:35
a real functioning radio station. That was probably kind of important to this town because I mean, just an aside, Pontypool Canada sounds like a pretty remote place. I feel like radios kind of important there.
Alex 20:47
Now I do want to say this was not filmed in Pontypool really, I don't remember where it was filmed, but I'm pretty sure it's not Pontypool.
Kelton 20:54
I remember there was a story that director said he was driving past assigned with his wife. And that's how he named the he named the movie. He literally just saw it, like, Oh, that's a cool looking name. I'm gonna name my movie after that.
Alex 21:08
Even though the book is named Pontypool changes everything. Maybe it was
Kelton 21:11
the writer that said that? I don't know. I couldn't tell her voice as a part of the director's.
Alex 21:16
Oh, it was Tony Burgess, the writer who wrote the original novel, Pontypool changes everything, I believe this is actually Pontypool changes, everything is the second in a trilogy. He also adapted the script for this, which is a nice touch. I think he's I mean, he's the most informed on the lore of the town. So having him as a part of the project was really nice. And you said he was on the director's commentary?
Kelton 21:39
Yes, him and the director. Were the the two guys on the director's commentary.
Alex 21:45
I listened to the director's commentary, maybe on my like, third watch through, and I'll be honest, I did not care for it that much.
Kelton 21:51
It was probably one of the worst directors commentaries I've ever listened to. And that's nothing against Tony and Bruce. But he, the books that they wrote are good. The movies good. It's just the director's commentary itself. They're very scatterbrain. The first 20 minutes, they talk about the movie very loosely, and then they start talking about the sequels, they start talking about pointable to imponderable three. And I swear they talk about Pontypool, two and three more than the actual movie that they're doing a director's commentary on.
Alex 22:21
So based off of my research, they've, at least Bruce has really publicly wanted to get Pontypool two and three off the ground in some capacity over the past decade. And I don't know what stopping production here, but I just don't think it's going to happen. I
Kelton 22:36
don't either, because Stephen mchattie he's getting pretty old. Yes, he's 74 at the time of this recording,
Alex 22:43
which is a shame, because I think there's maybe more to explore in this universe, but I think, fortunately, and we're getting a little bit off track here. But this universe, I think, can be explored in ways other than in a movie. I think there could very easily be an audio adaptation for a sequel just like there was for this. Or I mean, even if you like Pontypool I guess you go read the books, which I might honestly consider. So bringing us back on track. Once the zombies infiltrate the studio, our main characters, Grant and Sydney, and Dr. Mendez have to figure out a way to escape the sound booth. And they decided to try and pull the zombies away from the sound booth by using a speaker mounted to the exterior of the studio, which I might say is the fifth shot in the entire movie of an exterior.
Kelton 23:26
It I feel like three of the five shots were like that little siren thing to that little speaker. Yes. Like that. That's like something they're proud of is that little speaker hanging on the side of the building.
Alex 23:39
We get a shot of grant Massey's parking space, the little speaker grant in his car, and then like a close up of grant in his car. I think that's every shot. That's how we need it outside the studio.
Kelton 23:50
That's all the exteriors that were necessary.
Alex 23:53
So the characters are actually pretty smart in this moment. I like this. They need a way to distract the zombies, but they also know that the zombies repeat whatever they hear. So they decide the way they distract them can also be a way to communicate a message. And the message they choose is Sidney Briar is alive. Sidney Pryor is a lie.
Unknown Speaker 24:19
is a lie. Sidney Brier is a lie.
Kelton 24:27
a loved one.
Alex 24:28
It is such a good line. I'd go so far as to say this is the most iconic line of the film. Absolutely.
Kelton 24:32
I feel like they could have named this movie Sidney Brier is alive if they wanted to.
Alex 24:38
Oh, absolutely. That'd be a great name for a movie. So I find it so fascinating then that Sidney Brier is alive is not actually in the audio version of this movie. This movie was adapted for radio. And that line is missing, which it's, I don't know why it doesn't have to be missing. They could have done
Kelton 24:56
it. Maybe because they got side after Like they leave the booth and it's they're trying to pull them away from the booth so they can leave the booth and then the audio version. They're not trying to leave the booth.
Alex 25:08
Yeah, but I feel like it's so it's so important that like, they could have incorporated it in some way, the audio version, you know, the characters can't really move around too much because you can't see him. Yeah, but it was a little bit of a disappointment to listen to it and not hear that line. But it works. The zombies are pulled out of the studio, presumably just back outside. And very polite zombies. I only noticed this I think I might last watch through but like they they closed all the doors on the way out as well. Yeah.
Kelton 25:37
If you're at low budgets, obviously you do you're respectful of the place you're shooting.
Alex 25:43
So what's the zombies? Believe grants and Sydney make their escape into a? How would you describe the room? Just the storage room?
Kelton 25:54
Yeah, it's like a, like a broom closet. There's just random shit all on the shelves. And it's not a very spectacular room. It's actually isn't it the same room that Dr. Mendez climbs in? He didn't think it was but I think they had that same window. I think that windows in the corner of the room. That'd
Alex 26:13
be hilarious if they just redecorated the room to make it look like a closet. And retrospect I think that's what they did.
Kelton 26:19
Probably I'm pretty sure that window is the same window in the corner. It's probably not that many rooms with windows in this radio station.
Alex 26:26
No, no, but as they're running the characters grant and Sydney get attacked by a little girl who we met earlier in the movie. Who did during
Kelton 26:34
that Lawrence of Arabia scene,
Alex 26:36
the Lawrence of Arabia. See blackface is hilarious. It's so funny in such a dark movie, like counts that Scott blackface which is such a wild choice, there's no reason for it in a movie made in 2008. But anyway, it's this little girl She's like, maybe 15 like in blackface. He's now a zombie who tackles grant the camera shows them falling to the floor. And then we get a shot that grant steps up into and starts kicking the little girl and then we have what appears to be a jump cut where it's the same frame but grant is missing and but we still hear the audio of the fight and then we have another jump cut. We're now grant and Sydney are kicking the little girl. It is such a strange editing decision. It's incredibly jarring in my opinion. It almost feels like they didn't have coverage. Yeah, it feels like they missed something. There had to have been something that went wrong in Poe in production to wear in post they had to make this weird decision that they probably understood didn't look right. But they did it because that was the only choice they had. This is a low budget movie after all. Yeah, I mean, it's very possible that in a movie like this, that corners are cut in sometimes you can dissipate all the issues you're going to have until post we'll fix it in post. Man they fixed it in post the bane of every editor, they kind of fixed it in both I'll say they could they could write it off as like odd weird and experimental but I think it's just jarring and experimental jumpcut that I don't think the cameras even framed up exactly the same it's not
Kelton 28:04
whenever it cuts to the clear it's actually reframed a little like they went back and shot it again or something
Alex 28:10
so weird and like as an editor myself like I almost wonder like why would I need to I feel like I could have done it better like just matching up the alignments of the shot it's really strange
Kelton 28:20
just turning this just rotating the image a little bit
Alex 28:23
but that's to say like I'm sure anybody watching it thinks like oh, I could fix it but like I'm sure there was a good reason it is
Kelton 28:30
they probably spent a whole day on this and we're not realizing the the pain that they experienced with these this short little fight sequence.
Alex 28:38
Now there's a pain editor somewhere in the history of this
Kelton 28:42
I believe that this isn't a well edited movie and this is the only point where there's a weird mishap and I truly believe it might have just been beyond saving and they had to move on all this
Alex 28:54
to say I think the movie moves on from it pretty quickly. It's a slight blip on an otherwise pretty good sequence where they run into I just said pretty good but I actually have one more thing to complain about they run into this closet and behind them we have Dr. Mendez speed walking in front of a group of zombies. So we have a document as is not what I consider like a fast or agile man. It's about
Kelton 29:19
the speed of you know middle middle aged women speed walking on the sidewalk getting their their daily exercise. Yes, it was it was just a power power jaunt just to
Alex 29:30
strong and be like 10 zombies chasing
Kelton 29:33
a strong walk while your life is in danger.
Alex 29:38
And he rushes into the room with them where they sort of barricade up the door. And he crawls out the window. And I didn't realize this on the first watch, but he's actually saving them on the first watch. I thought he was just escaping. I didn't pick up on that he was shouting
Kelton 29:55
to go Yeah, it gets their attention away from that room.
Alex 29:58
So maybe he's just conserving his energy for presumably the long water long, cold,
Kelton 30:01
yelling, shouting for the tundra. breezing walk Yeah,
Alex 30:08
that it makes me wonder how anybody gets infected if you could just like walk away from the zombies.
Kelton 30:14
Although he did crawl across the entire town to get to this radio station, they can't be that quick, true in any way shape or form.
Alex 30:22
Except for Laura LAN and the little girl who attack so dives
Kelton 30:27
at the Yeah, the younger they get it. I think it's like, they have to have good boats, you know, like good muscles. Like it's very dependent on how fit they are already. Yeah, like Laura lands of bet. So like she was already like, pretty, pretty, pretty fit. And like, you know, the little girl, she was young, so she was like, able to go Yeah,
Alex 30:51
they rip the zombies out of a few different movies for this.
Kelton 30:55
We've got the C budget, the C list movie zombies here the B list movies and then laureline and a little girl or a list movie zombies
Alex 31:02
that would say they're a list. zombie movies, zombie plus
Kelton 31:07
list. There we go minus list.
Alex 31:09
I think about like popular movie interpretations of zombies. They're like World
Kelton 31:13
War Z climbing the Yeah, there's
Alex 31:15
our so fast. They're superhuman. But that's really not where the fear is derived in this movie.
Kelton 31:22
There's not a ton of fear, just in general, it's just a lot of what's going on,
Alex 31:27
especially at this point, I'd say at this point in the mystery is pretty much solved in terms of like, what the zombies are, what the horror elements are,
Kelton 31:34
we found out how the virus is is made, we found out how it transmits we found out that this whole town is overrun. I mean, there's a lot of questions that have been answered at this point. So
Alex 31:45
they locked themselves in the room, Dr. Mendez presumably saves them by running away. And grants and Sydney are left to their own devices for sort of an unspecified period of time. Also, the bottle of whiskey is there. The important character that is and Sydney is sort of nursing the bottle of whiskey writing messages to loved ones on the wall. And she, I think more so than grant fears that she's going to be infected or already is infected. They're speaking slight French, because grant doesn't speak French very well,
Kelton 32:16
depending on the situation, depending
Alex 32:19
on what the story necessitates people's level of French sorta moves around. And Sydney starts to talk in English. And she catches it like in a very obvious way she starts to we saw this happen with Laura LAN. She gets caught on a thought on a message she's trying to communicate, but can't get across
Kelton 32:38
and keeps repeating it. And then you see what you saw in Laura Lan, the the spiral out of control the repetition that leads to being infected by this virus.
Alex 32:48
What is the word she's repeating? Kill, she starts to understand the word kill. And I think in the movie, it's because of the little girl that presumably her and mazzy kill that she's dwells on it, she starts to understand it. And that's what really gets her.
Kelton 33:04
That's when we kind of realize there's a very powerful scene where grant basically uses abstraction as a tool to pull her out of this trance that she's trapped herself in.
Alex 33:16
Yeah, the line he says is how do you take a word? How do you make it strange,
Kelton 33:21
and he throws out all this gibberish to pull her away from the trap that this word has created for her.
Alex 33:29
He's trying to make the word in comprehensible You know, when you say a word over and over it starts to lose meaning that's what he's trying to do but abstracted into what could kill mean. And the one I thought was the most hilarious is he one of the options he throws out is kill is Manny's garden.
Kelton 33:44
What's a mayonnaise garden?
Alex 33:46
I would have missed it. I had it not been for the subtitles.
Kelton 33:49
But I mean, I missed it.
Alex 33:50
So it shows how creative grant is I think but
Kelton 33:54
he ends up sticking on kills kiss Yeah, she
Alex 33:56
has like a almost immediate connection to kill us kill, kill.
Kelton 34:05
Gonna get they get closer and they get closer and they eventually kiss. And more or less in this moment, they've Be it placebo or not, they realize that they can beat the virus. And that in this moment, they did beat the virus. And they rushed out of the room in pure excitement of having overcome this what they thought was the end of her and they basically do one final broadcast.
Alex 34:30
Yeah. And it's interesting how I think this final broadcast sort of mimics the first part of the movie where Sydney and grant are at odds arguing about what to say on radio. And at this point, they're collaborating on how do we save the world.
Kelton 34:47
I didn't even think about that. The fact that you know the beginning they're very butting heads and at odds. And then by the end they embrace and kiss and it's almost like a love story very much. So it's is like a little love story element tied into this indie horror movie.
Alex 35:04
I think it, it works. I wish it had been built up a little bit better because I think it pays off Well, absolutely. But I wish they had a little bit more time to sort of grow there. I take that back, they have good chemistry the whole time.
Kelton 35:16
Speaking of chemistry,
Alex 35:17
they're married, right?
Kelton 35:18
They are married in real life, they are a happily married couple the time of shooting this, I'd think they'd been married for around 10 years, give or take, and the director said, but the chemistry that they had, as a married couple defeated, basically anyone he could have found a cast for these roles, Stephen mchattie, was basically locked in as Grant mazzy. And it didn't take too long for them to realize that Lisa, who is his wife was the perfect fit of the character of Grant mazzy is very rambunctious and loud and brazen, and over the top, and it takes a very skilled actor to be the complimentary role of that. And Lisa, having known this man for many years, inside and outside of work, she handles it very well. And I believe the complimentary aspect of her character just makes things so well. So so well done.
Alex 36:14
Absolutely. There's almost not even a question of will they won't they? It's like, when you see them together, it's like they will. So this is the part where I'm a little bit more fuzzy on the spinal broadcast. Can you tell me a little bit about sort of what's going on here?
Kelton 36:27
So basically, at this point, Brant is trying to tell the people the world at large, whoever wants to listen, that they have found the answer, they figured out a way to to beat this virus. And it's it's such a difficult thing to explain to someone, let alone on a radio broadcast, that the general understanding of everyone at this point is that English is bad. English is the thing carrying this virus, the English language shouldn't be used. And anyone who is using the English language is trying to perpetuate that virus. Brandt is doing this radio broadcast in English. He is trying to explain to the world at large that you can beat this by basically pulling away meaning from all these words that you're saying when you get caught up. Build a wall of abstraction around this word, to eliminate threat to eliminate the virus from taking hold. That is how you pull yourself away from the clutches of this virus. And at the same time, there's military Canadian military surrounding this town.
Alex 37:37
We hear on a loudspeaker them communicating. Is it in French? Yes, and subtitles it's translated to English so I sort of lost my perspective on what's an English what's in French
Kelton 37:48
Canadian military, more or less have have locked down the entire town of Pontypool and they're speaking in French. And they asked is Sidney Brier still alive because they had picked up what was being sent off earlier to distract the zombies. And he tells them Sydney briars still alive. And he keeps trying to explain that this virus can be beaten. But all the Canadian military sees is this man speaking English. And he keeps talking in English on the radio on the radio, he is actively trying to spread this virus. And there's in this moment of, it's a very heated moment. The score for the for the movie gets very loud. It gets very pronounced. And there's just a lot going on Sydney, screaming grant screaming, and there's a countdown happening. And in this, this French military man is literally counting down till the bombs are dropped.
Alex 38:43
And we can hear gunshots happening throughout this whole thing. It's very obvious that all hell has broken loose. Yes, things are very wrong and Pontypool. So as the countdown is happening. Brant is delivering his final speech, which I think is a bit of a tonal shift. We've always known that Grant has been sort of a stick to the guy, almost conspiracy theorist, yes. Stick to the guy, stick it to the man, stick it to the man guy get to the guy. And at this point, he's he's almost addressing, he's stopped talking to like the audience at large and how to save them and he starts addressing the military and he screams You are killing scared people. It's what you always do, which it's an interesting touch. It feels almost as if the writer or director is sort of speaking to us in that moment rather than grant. It's a
Kelton 39:29
very, it's like he used this movie as a platform to speak out against police brutality or something of that sort. It really did feel not out of place, but something that he spoke through grant with
Alex 39:43
and we haven't really talked about this at all, but throughout the movie, there's been sort of a lot of war references, a lot of sort of contemporary things about terrorism and insurgencies.
Kelton 39:52
Saddam Hussein is referenced Osama bin Salman bin Laden was referenced Yeah, and Laurel and being a military veteran. It's there was that story he told about, like killing people at the, at the trailer house with the trailer park facility.
Alex 40:07
It's realistic in a way, like when you have a mass outbreak, you might assume like terrorism or insurrection, but it feels also, it feels like the like they're trying to convey something and all of this dialogue because it really doesn't matter to the story. This is all tertiary.
Kelton 40:22
It's it's just, you know, what seemingly random mentions of violence and horrible things. And I think
Alex 40:29
it sort of comes to a head here. This is where we sort of get the, the thesis of what he's trying to say. But it keeps on talking. And I actually don't remember the rest of the broadcast.
Kelton 40:39
The actual closing is, is a pretty powerful line. The grand delivers today's news, folks. Today's late breaking, developing just across my desk news story is this. It's not the end of the world, folks. It's just the end of the day. This is grant Massey, for CLS why radio nowhere. I'm still here you cocksuckers.
Alex 41:00
And as he says that the military counts down to one, we see the studio shake, we hear what sounds like a bomb drop.
Kelton 41:09
And then in Sydney, some runs runs in Oh, yeah, to the booth. And they embrace and they kiss and then fade to black. Well,
Alex 41:18
it's not fade to black. It's a it's a cut, like cut to black. I mentioned it because it's jarring. It's like, yeah, they're doing it.
Kelton 41:24
So we don't really does feel like you're cutting off right before something horrible happens.
Alex 41:28
Yes. And then throughout the credits, we have a news broadcast from around the world sort of fleshing out what's happened in the virus. The credits I want to mention, are very nice. It's not a scroll, the credits sort of come up, and each section baits and they're in a nice red font. It's a it's just a nice little tough, but I can't
Kelton 41:49
say I paid very close attention to the credits for this movie, I need to go back and watch the credits.
Alex 41:55
So you know, in mid summer where there's credit cards, yeah, just like, it's like a square, like a like a frame. Yeah, so this isn't quite as like, artistic as the way things were laid out. But they're basically cards that come up, fade out, and like sort of like zoom away from the camera,
Kelton 42:11
like stack on top of each other kind of like you're going through the like through it. Yeah, that's cool,
Alex 42:17
which I think is nice, because the credits having the dialogue about the rest of how the virus has progressed throughout the world. It encourages people to sit down and actually watch the credits. And away not many movies do, because there's actually a scene right after the credits.
Kelton 42:31
Yeah, it's a it's a really cool scene. I think a lot of people I mean, even if they missed it, they didn't watch the credits, and they missed it. You know, it didn't really change your viewing experience to the movie. But I particularly love this scene. It's a scene of grant and Sydney, assuming this is in the future and in the same reality, and they're at a sushi restaurant. I didn't even notice it was sushi. Yeah, so I did some research and the director, he calls grant a sushi gangster.
Alex 43:07
That's so weird.
Kelton 43:08
So So grant and Sydney are at this sushi restaurant, and grant is wearing a suit with shades, black shades, and Sydney's wearing a dress. You know,
Alex 43:17
it looks like a frame from kettlebells.
Kelton 43:19
It does it in the black and white, it starts off black and white, which is another thing and it really does feel like a Tarantino esque. You know, Grindhouse kind of thing. Absolutely. Like you're about to watch Hellboy, like this is this is an opening scene to Hellboy or something like that. And basically, they're having this conversation and they're kind of talking in non sequiturs. They're, they're saying things like, where are we going to go, and then grant says, We're going somewhere that we don't know where it is yet. And these Converse this conversation, it doesn't really have meaning. But if they had context, they could have this conversation and still understand what each other is saying. And eventually it gets to the point where the words they're saying the sentences they're saying, are more coherent, and they make more sense and understanding starts getting applied to the stuff that they're saying. And then it's at this moment, it starts switching from black and white to a full color frame. And I would
Alex 44:19
almost say that it looks like a different camera like the the set is something we've never seen these. It looks sharper. It looks more contrast II. Yeah, it's it looks like something taken from an entirely different movie. It's very strange. And I read that during the test screening for this movie, this scene was actually right at the ends, right after they cut to black before the credits. And I just cannot imagine this movie with this scene taking place sort of in cannon. It works for me as an after credit scene. But it's wild that it wasn't intended to be that way. Yeah,
Kelton 44:57
so Sydney asked for the going he says they're going somewhere. That they don't even know yet. And then grant says,
Unknown Speaker 45:04
then we still believe knock boots in the free world maybe.
Kelton 45:07
Okay, okay, they, he, she wishes her, and it cuts to black. And it says Finn. Now, it's pretty important to understand the mechanics of the virus and how it took hold in the movie, in order to understand this scene, basically what they're doing is they're speaking without meeting in this post virus reality, where the English language is basically tainted, I guess. And they're having conversations without actually applying the meaning so that none of them could get sick with the virus. And then at the end, Grant says, baby, not referring to anyone in particular. And then Sydney says okay, baby directly to grant, which is a direct term of endearment, which is a no no, in this world.
Alex 45:54
And her intention very much as to be saying an affirmative to grant grant is not looking at her in this same, she turns to grant says, okay, baby,
Kelton 46:03
and more or less Terms of Endearment are the black plague, I guess, I mean, that. I don't understand. I'm not an expert on this, you know, sci fi made up fake virus. But as far as I can tell, Terms of Endearment are the guarantee that you get infected and that this thing takes hold of you.
Alex 46:26
Yes. And I find it a little bit frustrating, because I want to derive meaning from, like, what they're saying how they're communicating. But I feel like the movie itself might not be consistent enough to successfully do that.
Kelton 46:40
Absolutely. It's funny because I can only go so deep into understanding this virus because the rules that they set for it are already so loose and freeform, that it doesn't really matter if you figure it out to a tee because there's, it's it's kind of open to interpretation by the audience. As to what this virus does. He doesn't create these phases that we see in zombie movies, like they get bitten and then an hour later, they start getting sick, and then they turn into a zombie. There's no, there's no ABC, there's no step one, step two, step three, it's just it might it might take a whole video it might not the director even went out and said during the director's commentary that why doesn't grant get sick, the entire movie, even though he's he's talking and he's saying stuff, why does it he gets sick, it's a virus. Viruses are the most inconsistent thing that can get a person sick, it might mutate. It might be, it might destroy someone's nervous system, or it might do nothing, it might not affect someone at all. So viruses in general, are something that's so inconsistent, that it's not really something that can give you hard answers for
Alex 48:00
it's really hard to break down the Canon here as well, because there's three versions of the Pontypool story. There's the movie that we've been talking about, there was a made for radio version that played on the CBC, BBC and ABC. And there was also a theater production of it. And I don't know about the theater production, but the radio version has a different ending where grant does get the virus and presumably die. Yeah, along with Sidney. All the dialogue is very similar up to that point in the movie. So it doesn't really stand to reason that grant would survive in the movie, given all the same circumstances, but die in the audio version. Yeah, it's really hard to suss out what's the difference here. In fact, I find Sydney's death more tragic actually, in the audio version, the normal lands death in the movie, really, because she she asked for him to kiss her, which I get the impression that he she actually means kill. She's asking him to kill her, Kiss me, kiss me, which I think is much more tragic than what happened. Absolutely.
Kelton 49:06
And I guess the the ending of the movie one is just a little strange. I mean, it's a little that they get blown up by the military, like, this crazy horrible virus takes over their town and they died like Bob's by by human beings.
Alex 49:22
humans were the enemy the whole time.
Kelton 49:26
That's what it is the references that you're killing scared people that's why you do it's just that there was never a virus the whole time. It's been like
Alex 49:36
well, this is watching the movie. It makes me wonder if grant started the virus because he at the very beginning of the movie is trying to understand the word Pontypool. He's breaking it down saina in different ways. He describes what each part of the word means, and it makes me wonder did he cause all of this
Kelton 49:56
he gave too much understanding to the word Pontypool Pontypool was the word curse word.
Alex 50:00
I feel like
Kelton 50:04
that's not to say like there's so many different ways that you could theorize how this started. Why it ended? It really is something really just, you say it is what it is you throw your hands up. Yeah.
Alex 50:14
And I think that's what you have to do with sort of movies of the scope. You know, I can't expect a movie like this with, I think planned sequels at the time of production to answer all the questions. Absolutely. Unfortunately, those sequels don't exist.
Kelton 50:29
by one day,
Alex 50:29
maybe one day,
Kelton 50:30
I'm still holding out hope.
Alex 50:41
So I'm curious, this was our first episode of Feargenics. And why did you pick this movie as the first one? Well, I certainly didn't pick it because it's the scariest movie, but that's evident I was able to watch it basically no problem.
Kelton 50:53
I kind of picked it because I wanted to show that or can look like anything. Board doesn't have to look like the you know, the exorcist. It doesn't have to be terrifying. It doesn't have to be jump scary. It doesn't have to be dark and Moody, Pontypool is a pretty light film, I would say in most cases, it's a pretty,
Alex 51:15
it's a pretty funny film. It's
Kelton 51:16
it's a light hearted, you know, fun film with a couple gory scenes and a couple kind of intense moments like the call with kin loaning the baby, but stay sort of hyper real the whole time. Yes. And, yeah, that's why I picked it because. And also, because it's low budget, I think it's really cool to show that even with low budgets, you can make something unique and interesting. This is a cult classic. Like, there's a lot of people that love this movie. And it's hard to find the distribution is kind of weird, and which was the time of recording this, I can only buy it on iTunes, and Amazon for like 60 bucks. Yeah. And
Alex 51:55
the Amazon, I get the impression that is just people selling their personal collection. That is not like an official Yeah, sort of distribution method, the only official method I can find is iTunes, yeah.
Kelton 52:05
And it used to be on shutter and it's not on shutter anymore. And you go to the page where it is, and it doesn't work
Alex 52:10
the audio version, for instance, the only way to listen to it is somebody ripped it and put it on YouTube, the official distribution method through BBC and CBC, those pages are just broken now. You can go with the like the web archive, and like see where they're supposed to be. But you can't download the audio.
Kelton 52:26
And I think that makes it a cooler movie. I think when I can tell people that like, there exists three different versions of this movie. And it's hard to find, and they don't distribute it very much. And there was a bunch of sequels planned, but they never did it. And it's a director's commentary with they don't actually talk about the movie, they just talked about the sequels for the movie. Like there's so many interesting little quirks around this movie that if you show it to someone who enjoys movies, and enjoys learning about the depths, and the inner workings, that it's, it's cool, it'll stick in their mind. And I I you like this movie, right?
Alex 53:03
Yes. I enjoyed this movie. And, you know, I would say I could recommend this movie to people who don't even like horror.
Kelton 53:09
Absolutely. It's just a weird it's it's kind of a thriller. It's it's just a weird thriller with a couple edgy moments.
Alex 53:17
I'd say there's two jumpscares in the movie, which, you know, you just have to deal with if you're watching it. It's not that bad.
Kelton 53:23
I mean, you can watch this movie just performances. Absolutely. Great. Movie. That's what you're doing. Brandt is a fucking rock star. Absolutely. Grant is absolutely wonderful in his role,
Alex 53:35
and knowing that it was almost an accident that he's in this role based off of the way this movie was made. It's worked out really well. Presumably grant is the reason why Lisa cool, isn't it? Yeah. His wife. Yeah, I keep on saying grant, Stephen McHale, Stephen mchattie. David mchattie. Buck plays Grant mazzy. Yeah, there's so much interesting stuff surrounding this movie, like the adaptation apparently was done in 48 hours without links. I mean, I guess that's really quick. But the guy who wrote the screenplay, also wrote the book, Tom, or Tony Burgess. So I guess that's why it was possible. But yeah, it's very quick. I don't even want to turn around the commercial in 48 hours. Like, I can't imagine turning out a whole script.
Kelton 54:16
A feature looks great. I mean, this was his baby can assume like he he probably did that on its own accord. He, he probably just sat down and was like, Ah, yes. I'm so excited for this be a movie
Alex 54:27
probably. Yeah. I mean, like, it's a pretty cool
Kelton 54:31
from what I gathered from the director's commentary. They're kind of nerdy. They're kind of like huge film nerds who talk like conceptually, which is awesome. Like, I enjoy those kinds of people. And those kinds of people, the same people that adapt the screenplay in 48 hours.
Alex 54:45
Sure. And it wouldn't surprise me if he had, you know, had sort of had ambition for it to be a movie someday and already had some of it in the process. Yeah,
Kelton 54:53
to wrap it all up. It's just a It's a neat little horror movie, and I'm sorry, he did get very scared, but Well, what A lot more scary ones in the future promise you that I this is easily the least scary of the movies I'm going to show you.
Alex 55:06
I can't say I'm looking forward to it. I am going into each movie as blind as possible. But having seen a few stills from each movie, as I've sort of tried to gather posters, and like, find places to buy the movie. I feel like I'm in for a bit of a wild ride, especially with Good night, Mommy, that's our next movie. I'm kind of nervous. I saw a frame where it looks like her face is fucked up. And I guess I don't want to see that. But
Kelton 55:34
I'm really excited because it's a completely different movie than than where we are now. We're in a it's an indie budget Canadian zombie movie, and we're getting to unbeliev it's German, it might be German or Danish or something of that nature. But a German body horror family bill.
Alex 55:54
I can't wait. And if you want to go ahead and come with us long for that right I'm sure I'll be a lot more traumatized in the next recording. Go ahead and hit subscribe. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter at Feargenics or Instagram Feargenics official or go to feargenics.com you want to send us a message Email us at podcast at Feargenics comm
Kelton 56:18
I hope you enjoy our descent into madness. Have a good one guys.
Alex 56:22
Take care guys.