Maybe it's that they're Canadian, or that they're promoting a very unusual zombie movie, or just that they're good people, but Bruce McDonald, Stephen McHattie and Lisa Houle are a relaxed bunch of people to interview. I had seen the three of the them the night before at a Q&A after the screening of their film Pontypool, and was mostly hoping to be able to ask some questions they hadn't already heard the night before. Turns out director McDonald started the questioning, asking me about the Flip camera I held in my hand and seeming genuinely intrigued by the technology. I had come prepared to talk about the revolutionary Red camera he used to film Pontypool; he wanted to know about my HD cam the size of an iPod.
McHattie and Houle are two of the three main stars of Pontypool, a film that documents a zombie infection of types the way that Orson Welles depicted the end of the world in the radio drama War of the Worlds. McHattie plays Grant Mazzy, an early morning radio shock jock who, along with radio staff members Sidney (Houle) and Laurel Ann (Georgina Reilly), is forced to stay on the air when reports that coming in that hordes townspeople have begun attacking one another, repeating nonsense words and behaving in a distinctly zombie-esque fashion. There's a little blood and violence in Pontypool, but for the most part it's a horror movie that operates on a psychological level, set entirely inside a cramped radio booth and letting you imagine for yourself-- along with the characters-- all the horrors that are happening outside.
Below is my interview with McDonald, Houle and McHattie, with some clips from the film tossed in to give you an idea of what we're talking today. IFC is releasing Pontypool today on on-demand and in limited theaters. It's an odd little horror movie, a definite contrast to this weekend's biggie Drag Me to Hell, and worth checking out.
