Pontypool: The Radio Drama
If you’ve seen Bruce McDonald’s cerebral zombie flick Pontypool, you’ll know that it deals with some heady concepts of language and communication, and that it plays out almost like a radio drama in the vein of Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds. Based on the book Pontypool Changes Everything by Tony Burgess, the story centers on a radio DJ named Mazzy Star who is hosting a morning show when he starts receiving reports of a “zombie” outbreak relayed by callers live on the air. Originally Bruce McDonald toyed with the idea of making the entire movie filtered through the radio broadcast. Ever wonder what that might have sounded like?
This week our friends over at Row Three recently stumbled across a very cool adaptation of the story that takes the radio drama element of the movie to its logical conclusion. The BBC is currently streaming an hour-long Pontypool radio play featuring performances by both Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle. Very cool and very creepy… a nice reminder of what can happen when you don’t have anything but your imagination to provide visuals. Head over to the BBC World Drama site right now to give it a listen.
Comments (3)
A movie about Radio! yyyeeepppppppppppppyyyyy!
Posted by Machete on September 10th, 2009The most visual movie I never saw. Well written. Extremely visual (for the immagination)
Posted by Ryan on September 14th, 2009Well I just watched a torrent that I was lucky to get. My head is spinning. Every actor was superb. This film is ambitious to say the least. But I like that. Reminds me a bit of “Talk Radio”. I was glad to see Sean had made the “War of the Worlds” connection, exactly my first thought. At a point the narrative “jumps the shark” trying too hard, delivering to much exposition than is allowed. Jay think “Lady in the water” All in all this is a gem. I am thankful for the BBC link.
Posted by xego on November 17th, 2009Leave a Reply