Review: Pontypool

Bruce McDonald's ambitious shaggy-dog story combining elements of Talk Radio, William Burroughs, and Night of the Living Dead succeeds about as well as could be expected. Grant Mazzy (Stephen McHattie), a poor man's Don Imus, shows up for his morning broadcast at the local radio station in the snowbound Ontario title boondock and finds that the routine of traffic conditions and weather forecasts is being interrupted by reports of inexplicable mob violence and other bizarre behavior. Shots of projectile-vomited blood and eyewitness accounts of cannibalism punctuate musings quoting Norman Mailer and Roland Barthes. McDonald's limiting the action to the radio studio induces claustrophobia and then devolves into staginess. He deserves credit for trying, but he's no David Cronenberg.

BRATTLE THEATRE: APRIL 24 at MIDNIGHT