Last week, I was just casually browsing the web and listening to the radio. However, when I switched the channel, I wasn't greeted by friendly radio hosts nor was I pleased with music: people on the radio were panicking about other people repeating single words over and over again, and how infectious this behavior was. Luckily, I was able to tell: this is not live radio, this must be a radio drama!
And I was right. In fact, FM4 broadcasted the radio drama version of the movie Pontypool, which is not your usual zombie flick. I personally think that Pontypool has a very philosophical and theatrical plot. To put it briefly -- beware of reading further if you want to watch or hear it!: it's about a virus that is spread through the English language. Various words are infected, which are repeated endlessly by the victims without having themselves under control. In the end, they feel forced to eat everything that produces English words: other human-beings as well as radios.
In the movie and in the radio play, we get to know of that event in a radio station, which is the main setting of the movie. During their broadcast, they get strange calls from their correspondent outside the studio, describing infected people and how he fears for his life. At one point it seems that the host and a radio technician are the last sane survivors in this town, when they realize how to save oneself from the infection: people just have to stop actually understanding these words.
The fact itself that a language or rather words are infected and that you have to alienate their meaning is just mind-blowing. I think that's such an intelligent thought and nothing you would expect in a horror movie.
The plot of Pontypool is only partly based on the book "Pontypool Changes Everything". As far as I've read in the book reviews, the virus itself is already present in the book and the radio host is only a minor character. Basically, the movie only borrows the idea of the virus itself, while the book deals with the results. I haven't read it yet, but it is definitely on my list. I'm very curious how the virus is described and if I can expect full pages with one repeated word.
If you want to listen to the radio drama yourself, you can do it on the BBC website right here. Strangely, although the drama consists of the audio of the movie itself, they have different endings. However, I still can't decide whether I prefer the movie over the radio drama or not. I'm just fascinated by the idea itself, in case you haven't noticed it yet.
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