PONTYPOOL

Grant (Stephen McHattie) is a DJ who's being fucked over by the big stations one too many times. When we first see him, he's firing his agent over his car-phone while on the way to work on the small breakfast radio show he's resigned to hosting.

Broadcasting from the basement of the local church in the small snowy Ontario town of Pontypool, it's a gig that Grant doesn't relish but takes on professionally regardless.

As he settles into the morning shift with his pretty young assistant Laurel-Ann (Georgina Reilly) and feisty producer Sydney (Lisa Houle), the early hours prove to be initially boring with the usual announcements of school buses failing to run due to the heavy snowfall, missing cats and so forth.

A brief row between Sydney and the opinionated, unapologetic Grant livens things up temporarily, before the calls start coming in and things really start getting interesting.

To begin with, the threesome at the station don't even realise that the incoming reports from their modest audience all follow the same violent pattern. A drunken hostage situation; an aggressive protest outside the offices of corrupt doctor Mendez (Hrant Alianak); people rioting while babbling in strange tongues; increasingly frantic reports phoned in from air bound journalist Ken (Rick Roberts).

The trio of studio-bound presenters finally realise the gravity of their situation when they decipher a message warning them not to speak in the English language, and get a call informing them they are locked in, under quarantine. The tension felt at this moment is beautiful and to reveal a second more would be spoiling far too much fun ...

PONTYPOOL comes to us courtesy of Canadian filmmaker Bruce McDonald, who has an illustrious background in directing TV shows on both sides of the Atlantic over the years - having worked on everything from "The Bill" and "Nancy Drew", to "Queer As Folk" and even "Degrassi: The Next Generation".

A journeyman, then. But PONTYPOOL is thankfully anything but the work of someone merely passing through and treating it as a stepping stone to bigger things. On the contrary, McDonald treats Tony Burgess' script like an intimate project of his own conception.

McDonald has clearly put a great deal of thought and preparation into what is provisionally a small film, taking the simple premise and fashioning a tight horror-thriller by way of slick editing, Claude Foisy's intelligent score licks, subtly used lighting and uniformly keen, nuanced performances. One of the greatest joys in this all-round engaging film is witnessing the reactions of the three superb leads as they begin to realise the extent of the problem surrounding them.

The story itself is a clever, slow-burning one, staying true to Burgess' own source novel. While it takes a while to get going, the characters are well-rounded and the script is above-par, setting us up for a final half when we can truly fear for the protagonists as that horror closes in.

Benefiting further from Miroslaw Baszak's truly sumptuous cinematography and the good grisly FX work of Aaron Weintraub and co, PONTYPOOL is an exceptionally well-made, low-key horror that crawls under the skin without you even realising it. Before you know, you're at the end credits, feeling suitably unsettled by what's transpired in the meantime.

But, while it truly works as a restrained zombie horror with black comedy undertones (the first half has a particularly witty script, largely donated to Grant's acerbic dialogue) , it isn't the terror or the gags that PONTYPOOL will be best remembered for. It's the human angle; the relationships that flourish and diminish throughout it's ceaselessly enjoyable 92-minute running time.

Ultimately, this seems to be what PONTYPOOL is all about: relationships, human communication. The need to reach out and identify with someone ... anyone.

PONTYPOOL is presented in a highly attractive anamorphic 2.35:1 transfer. Grain-free and smooth in texture, the contrast and black levels remain strong while colour and finer details shine throughout.

As you would expect from such a recent production, the English 5.1 audio is also a good proposition. Utilising each channel accurately and evenly, this finely balanced mix provides good bass and rear audio without ever overpowering the thinner front channels of dialogue.

The animated main menu page leads into animated sub-menus which include a scene-selection menu access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

Extras spring into action with a commentary track from McDonald, in conversation with Burgess. It's a decent track that starts clumsily but soon gets over the nervous laughter and mumbling, developing into an erudite and fact-packed natter.

Next up are two "Horror Collection" short films: "Eve" and "Dada Dum". "Eve" is 12 minutes long and lensed in black-and-white. It's filled with arthouse imagery that flirts with classic silent movie era aesthetics while taking on religious overtones. It doesn't make much sense, but comes across as something between a Tool promo video and the infamous BEGOTTEN. It's presented in non-anamorphic widescreen and is free from dialogue, instead relying on occasional words to flash across the screen pretentiously.

2007's "Dada Dum" is from Canadian director Britt Randle and is another monochrome meandering of floating women, decrepit interiors and droning soundtracks. It crawls along for 8 further minutes.

A very generous gallery of production and film stills runs for just over 4-and-a-half-minutes, set to the main film's deceptively lulling score.

The original theatrical trailer is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen and is sufficiently spooky over the course of 90 seconds, leaving potential audiences wanting to know what could have happened next.

A teaser trailer rounds off the film-related extras, which is a similar length but has much worse video quality. I'm assuming this was an early online trailer.

The disc is defaulted to open with trailers for THE END (with burned-in subtitles for the benefit of those who can't understand Cockney gangsters), COLIN and TRAILER PARK OF TERROR.

PONTYPOOL is an excellent film that keeps it's horrors at bay for it's first two-thirds, before delivering the gory goods for those bored by fundamental storytelling traits such as characterisation and plot. In that respect, there is a certain 70s vibe to proceedings. And it's most agreeable. But the film also feels extremely fresh, primarily for it's original take on the zombie genre and the wonderfully cynical anti-hero that has been created in Grant. He's a loser, but a beautifully ungracious one.

A sequel is already being prepared. Let's hope it's as good as this film. As Al said in his recent review of 2009, PONTYPOOL is "a refreshingly exciting new edge to the apocalyptic dead scenario". And it's complemented here by a very nice DVD release from Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment.

Also available on blu-ray.

Review by Stu Willis