Ah, finally, a zombie movie with a completely new kind of zombie!
Pontypool is a film produced by IFC Films, a small production company spawned from the Independent Film Channel. A low-budget horror film, it centers on a small town in Ontario, Canada in the dead of winter. The main character here is Grant Mazzy, a radio DJ who was kicked off of a large station for being too unruly who is now about to start his first day on a tiny talk radio station. His day starts off fine enough, but then their news sources start reporting riots in the town just a few kilometers from the station. What follows is a masterfully-built tension machine of a film.
But enough about the film premise, what about the zombies? These zombies, dubbed "Conversationalists" by the director, aren't your ordinary zombies. These are infected not by a military chemical, not by a virus, and not by voodoo, but by the English language itself. I won't spoil exactly how this goes about occurring since it's one of the major sources of tension in the film, but these zombies are the most original ones I've seen in a film since 28 Days Later. They aren't actually living dead, though, they're just infected people, so there's no "blow to the head" rule here.
The film is notable because it is almost completely contained within the radio studio, and the tension that builds is surprisingly effective. It took a few ques from Orson Welles' War of the Worlds broadcast, for sure.
If you are a fan of horror, you owe it to yourself to see this film.
