Pontypool

Think of this witty, economically gory little tour de force as "28 Days Later" written by linguist Noam Chomsky.

Think of this witty, economically gory little tour de force as "28 Days Later" written by linguist Noam Chomsky.

A horror flick that's all talk and (almost) no action? The risk pays off better than you'd think.

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.

A small Canadian horror film that makes the most of its minuscule budget.

A small Canadian horror film that makes the most of its minuscule budget.

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.

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.

A zombie flick sans bite.

Pontypool is something like a claustrophobic, locked-in-the-barn zombie movie, only almost without zombies.