Pontypool: Or How I Learned to Start Worrying and Fear the New Zombie
Posted by: Matt Gamble in Editorials, Movies
Being born in 1976 I have missed most, if not all, of what I would consider the major tide changes in horror film making here in the United States. The two closest to my heart, and in my opinion the two most important films, being Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Some might say that I was able to witness a similar precedent with The Blair Witch Project, which is a fair point to make. But I think that over the course of time since The Blair Witch Project was released has proven the film to be far more influential in the marketing of films, and specifically the rise of viral marketing, then it has influenced the horror genre.
But while The Blair Witch Project certainly was influential, Night of the Living Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre were revolutionary by comparison. Both were low budget shock fests that relied far more on mood and atmosphere to set the table for the scares they were about to serve the audience then most of the other low budget fare of their time. Night of the Living Dead was serious whereas other horror films of the day were campy. And The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, despite its reputation, isn’t bathing in gore as many of its contemporaries were, but rather is a subtle and subdued fright fest. Neither are particularly scary by today’s standards and styles, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre relying on an general level of creepiness rarely matched in any other film, and Night of the Living Dead almost suffocating the viewer with tension. And while these two might not be the best horror films ever made, particularly in the case of Night of the Living Dead where most people, myself included, view its sequel Dawn of the Dead to be the superior film, but these two films introduced audiences to new concepts and styles in horror, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre masterfully manipulating audiences with its “based on actual events” premise. As much as I would like to discuss The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, the lack of zombies in the film make it a bit difficult to directly correlate to the film that made me want to write this piece in the first place. But Night of the Living Dead on the other hand, brought about a whole new and terrifying meaning to the word zombie, which is quite relevant to what I wish to discuss.
Before the walking, brain-eating living dead zombies that flood current pop culture ever existed, the zombie was a vastly different monster. The concept of the zombie originated in the Caribbean where the belief is held that a certain kind of puffer fish is poisonous enough to cause people to slip into a death like coma for several days and the inevitable result of this being that people are often buried alive. It is believed that this technique had been co-opted by various criminal elements, and through their employment of Voodoo sorcerer’s (called bokors), that they can control these beings once they are revived from their horrific slumber. The region’s strong religious beliefs have led to the notion that anyone this happens to is at the mercy of the bokor that revives them. This practice was of course showcased in the fantastic film The Serpent and the Rainbow as well as the totally unappreciated, yet equally fantastic, Weekend at Bernie’s II. And while these films are now modern day exceptions to the norm, up until the release of Night of the Living Dead the basic premise of the zombie was someone who was powerless to resist the mind control of another person. But then Night of the Living Dead changed everything.
Since the release of Night of the Living Dead and its revolutionary seminal take on zombies, this has become a relatively stale sub-genre. There are still plenty of good zombie films being made, but there have been few innovations on the zombie concept in the decades since. Fast moving zombies, considered revolutionary by the uneducated when they appeared in Zach Snyder’s remake of Dawn of the Dead, had already been implemented in 1985’s Return of the Living Dead. The idea of worms or parasites controlling a host body, used most recently in the film Slither, was used earlier in the 1987 film Night of the Creeps, and even then it was clearly an homage to the iconic 1957 horror film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. 28 Days Later showed perhaps the most innovation of this group by changing from living dead zombies to a viral hate plague, but even it relied on a blood born pathogen for transmission and used what would soon become the cinematic standard of using fast moving ghouls. Even the Spanish horror film [Rec] showed further innovation by sequestering the victims in the same building as the zombies rather then have them hiding in a building with the menace outside. [Rec]2 looks to increase the claustrophobia even more by using first-person camera angles to draw the viewer directly into the film. All of these are welcomed additions to the sub-genre, and when used well can make for a unique and enjoyable viewing experience, but by no means has the sub-genre done much more then implement minor tweaks on a premise that has existed relatively undisturbed for fifty years. That is, until Pontypool came along and changed everything.
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