40
A zombie flick sans bite.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
40
Pontypool is something like a claustrophobic, locked-in-the-barn zombie movie, only almost without zombies.
50
New York Magazine (Vulture) by David Edelstein
Pontypool doesn't jell--its pretensions way exceed its reach--yet it's madly suggestive, and it rekindled my affection for the genre.
60
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
A horror flick that's all talk and (almost) no action? The risk pays off better than you'd think.
100
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Think of this witty, economically gory little tour de force as "28 Days Later" written by linguist Noam Chomsky.
40
Village Voice by Melissa Anderson
For a film about the perils of too much talk, there's quite a lot of babbling presented as profundity. The political statements in Pontypool, much like those in another recent Canadian offering, Atom Egoyan's trite terrorism hand-wringer "Adoration," seem all the less provocative for appearing several years too late--McDonald's film might have had more punch if it were released when Bluetooth first rolled out.
83
Primarily though, the film works as a tour de force for McHattie--a veteran character actor making the most of his character’s long, fluid monologues--and as a sly commentary on journalistic responsibility.
50
The New York Times by Stephen Holden
A small Canadian horror film that makes the most of its minuscule budget.
50
The premise has potential, but there's no follow- through. And there's no actual zombie mayhem; we learn everything secondhand -- from phone calls to the station.