Part of a new breed of highbrow “concept” horror that shrugs off and/or embraces the constraints of limited production means and instead picks at the nasty mental scabs of what truly unnerves, Pontypool is a unique thriller that has the twin advantages of a provocative premise and a superb cast. Together, these things hold an audience’s attention for the bulk of the movie’s running time, holding at bay some frustrations with a third act that doesn’t seem quite certain of which direction to head or what sort of energy level to embrace.

Adapted by Tony Burgess from his own book, Pontypool Changes Everything, and directed by Bruce McDonald (Hard Core Logo, The Tracey Fragments), Pontypool is a tightly wound, genre-bending psychological thriller, starring Stephen McHattie (Hollis Mason, the original Nite Owl,
in Watchmen), about the wild spread of a deadly virus. Spare in design but exquisitely shot on the new “Red One” HD camera, the film sparks memories of the claustrophic feelings of American pre-independent cinema of the early 1980s, when even the inclusion of paid extras was a luxury that couldn’t be afforded.

Exuding gruff charisma, McHattie (above right) stars as radio deejay Grant Mazzy, who’s been kicked off the big city airwaves and has just recently taken a job as early morning host of Radio 660’s “The Beacon,” in the small Canadian town of Pontypool. The cramped quarters are a long way from the zenith of his days as a top-shelf shock-jock; in fact, the station broadcasts from the basement of the town’s only church, and Mazzy’s entire staff consists of producer Sydney Briar (Lisa Houle, above left) and Afghanistan veteran turned knob-twirling techie Laurel Ann Drummond (Georgina Reilly).

What begins as just another brutal winter morning quickly becomes something more intriguing. Starting with their off-site “eye in the sky” helicopter reporter (in actuality a guy simply perched on a hill at the edge of town), and continuing with garbled phone calls from eyewitnesses, bizarre reports start streaming in of people committing horrendous acts of violence against one another — even biting and mauling their friends and family. But there’s nothing coming in on the official news wires. So is any of this really happening? In a twist worthy of Lost, the Beacon’s radio signal is then interrupted with a message in French that, among other things, warns against communicating verbal affection to loved ones… and translating the message into English. Whoops, too late: Mazzy has read it over the air.

As fractured reports of more violence trickle in, there’s also news of strange speech patterns — marauding hordes of people chanting incongruous slogans over and over. Trapped in the radio station, Mazzy and Sydney are forced to confront the possibility that this insane, seemingly viral behavior taking over the town might be somehow spreading as a result of their radio transmissions — through language itself.

With its talky, literate roots, Pontypool fits in with a new slice of genre films that consciously (sometimes a bit too consciously) eschew conventional horror formula, and the baser entertainments of brawny response. This time — in addition to the story choice of limited scope — it’s an avoidance of the word “zombie,” as if even its bare mention would somehow sully the proceedings. It may seem a quibbling criticism, but for Mazzy — a career on-his-feet thinker who has to chew up live air time with frazzled and/or incoherent guests — it seems dubious that he wouldn’t be a bit more forward-thinking and speculative about the goings-on in the outside world. That, in other words, he wouldn’t spit out the word zombie, even if only in disbelief.

This relates a bit to the overall flagging intellectual momentum of the film. It may be a bigger part of the source material, but the provocative, fascinating idea at Pontypool‘s core — rife with sociopolitical symbolism, both because of the film’s French Canadian setting and the context of recent world events, in which America has behaved with reckless impunity — doesn’t feel like it quite gets a full treatment on screen. The requisite “situational expert,” in this case a doctor (Hrant Alianak) who breaches the security of the station, adds frustratingly little of substance to the proceedings; writer Burgess puts him in a room with Mazzy, who would have all the same questions as the audience, and has the latter essentially clam up, and slow-peddle things. One doesn’t need definitve answers about the menace within the movie, but probing questions are essential to keep driving an audience’s bewilderment and anxiety.

Also, Mazzy is such an interesting character — and, in a superlative performance, McHattie embodies him
with such grizzled, devil-may-care confidence, coming across as a
long-lost sibling of Hugh Laurie on House — that it’s a bit of disappointment that Pontypool doesn’t pick up its pace of interaction early on, allowing for more robust interpersonal interaction that would help shade and color Sydney and Laurel Ann, who feel a bit like unequal sides in this narrative triangle. As is, though, there’s an eerie sense of hairline-fractured calm that hangs over the entire picture (in that sense, it’s very Canadian), and it’s again worth stressing that there is a Kafkaesque grip here that not a lot of movies attempt, let alone succeed at. McDonald directs the hell out of the material — utilizing an ascetic aesthetic, making smart framing choices — and there’s apparently already a sequel in the works. For these reasons and more, fans of claustrophic, character-rooted thrillers like Misery or Cube that also have a certain appreciation for arthouse fare will find plenty of merit in Pontypool. (IFC Films, unrated, 96 minutes)

Clearly delighting in a return to roots, Sam Raimi downshifts a bit
from the high-flying theatrics of the billion-dollar Spider-Man
franchise with Drag Me to Hell, a slickly made, engaging horror film that evokes the spirit of much of the director’s early work, particularly the Evil Dead series. Mixing different modes of horror storytelling with dark touches of humor, Raimi hits story beats colorfully and with a heavyweight boxer’s precision, proving gore isn’t necessary for a cathartic horror-thrill ride.

Los Angeles loan officer Christine Brown (Alison Lohman) has a good life; she’s happy with her boyfriend, Clay Dalton (Justin Long), a young professor at a nearby college, and seems to have the inside track on a promotion. In an effort to impress upon her boss (David Paymer) that she can make tough-minded decisions with an eye on the bottom line rather than human compassion, Christine denies a third extension on the home mortgage of an old woman (Lorna Raver), which means certain foreclosure. Feeling that she has shamed her, the woman viciously attacks Christine after work in the parking lot, and places upon her a curse. Feeling creeped out, Christine consults with a psychic, Rham Jas (Dileep Rao), and learns the specifics of the gypsy curse: that she will be tormented for three days by a spirit that will eventually come to claim her soul. Increasingly panicked attempts to alter that destiny ensue.

Drag Me to Hell trades in an aggressive sound design; the movie is constructed and mixed like a Michael Bay action film. In winking fashion, it also includes plenty of conventional horror signifiers — creaking windows and wind-slammed garden gates, mewing cats and clattering pans. Yet the movie also exhibits a smart sense of exacting construction. Working from a script with his brother Ivan, a frequent collaborator, Raimi seeds his story with alternately small and amusing details (farmgirl Christine used to be overweight, which quietly feeds her insecurity and anxiety over being accepted by Clay’s rich parents) that help give the movie the feeling of an anchored drama. Overall, the emphasis is definitely on the thrills, and horror, but comedic grace notes are interwoven throughout too.

Raimi proves himself, too, to be a master manipulator of genre mood, efficient with effects both practical and computer-generated. Ominous shadow play and a handful of low-angle tracking shots are intermingled with other trademark Raimi flourishes, like his resurrected fetish, from Evil Dead, for wildly over-the-top, hand-to-hand violence perpetrated by and against seemingly possessed old ladies. These low-fi bits help give the film’s artificial visual effects greater punch and value.

Drag Me to Hell may be rated PG-13, but it’s unlikely that most horror buffs will feel cheated. Raimi gleefully dispenses with the usual sacred cows (neither children nor kittens are safe), and also leans on wild gross-out moments to goose his audience. There are effusive sprays of slimy phlegm and vomit, as well as one comedic blood-gushing sequence, all of which would make Monty Python’s Mr. Creosote proud. For the full, original review, from Screen International, click here. (Universal, PG-13, 99 minutes)

Based on Noel Coward’s stageplay of the same name, Easy Virtue is an engagingly acted, smartly scripted film — and that rare period piece that refuses to yield to predictably stuffy interpretations of what does and what doesn’t constitute familial screen conflict in times gone by. How is this best illustrated, you ask? Why, there’s a scene in which Jessica Biel crushes a little dog to death with her ample derriere. Yes, seriously.

Starring Biel and Ben Barnes (above), the film centers around John Whittaker, a young Englishman from a prim and proper family who falls madly in
love with Larita, a sexy and glamorous American woman who, improbably enough, makes a living driving a motorcar. They marry
impetuously, but when the couple returns to the stuffy Whittaker family
home, John’s mother (Kristin Scott Thomas) has an instant allergic
reaction to her new daughter-in-law. Sparks fly, and a battle of wits
ensues, with the approval of John’s sisters (Katherine Parkinson and Kimberley Nixon) serving as the swing-vote opinions on the nuptials, and the couple’s future.

Cast somewhat intriguingly against type as a bit of a cad, and
layabout, Colin Firth brings pleasantly shaded and subtle tones of
swallowed sadness to his role as John’s stubbled, war veteran father,
even as he bickers and banters with relish. As the film unfolds we learn more about his outcast status, and the
disdain with which John’s mother holds him. Biel, sort of playing with fire in respect to bombshell expectations, goes platinum blonde for the role, and does a solid job. There’s something inescapably modern about Biel — and I’m not talking just her body — but in both The Illusionist and now here, she does the necessary work to make you believe her character fits within the times. More demure wallflowers I think she would have trouble with, but slipping into corsets or flapper outfits and playing women a bit ahead of their respective times is well within her grasp, and something that no doubt helps her keep some of the dreck genre screenplays she must be continuously peddled at bay.

At its core, Easy Virtue is both a light comedy of manners and an attack on both the practice and practitioners of outmoded Victorian control, and trying to live out one’s life (either vicariously or for material gain) through the lives of their children. That it’s a period piece is almost incidental, given the towel-snapping pleasure of much of the dialogue. (Where else does one get to hear one character slag another as “swinging your wherewithal like a cat in heat”?) Composer Marius de Vries provides a peppy score that serves the material quite well, but the grander portion of the film’s vibrancy must be credited to Australian director Stephan Elliott (The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), who stages scenes with a brisk, flirty touch while letting the dramatic stakes rise naturally to a slow boil, courtesy of the script, co-written by Sheridan Jobbins.

The only story strand that feels a bit off, or leaves one really wanting for some further connective tissue, concerns siblings Philip and Sarah (Christian Brassington and Charlotte Riley), longtime family friends of the Whittaker clan. John’s casual shelving of Sarah as a potential mate — and her rather blithe acceptance of it — gets its own scene of explanation, but feels like it could’ve been milked for more, either dramatically or comedically. Similarly, the ending may strike some as a bit pat; it’s best if it’s taken as a sort of tonal snapshot of the characters’ minds at that particular point rather than a fixed, end-point conclusion.

Oh, and finally, of course, there’s that scene where Biel’s Larita, quite accidentally, sits on the Whittaker’s prized tiny pooch. In one sense, it feels like a put-on from a Farrelly brothers flick. But Elliott and his cast cleverly spin it forward, and let it be both silly and panicked, having actual consequences. A lot of comedies in general could learn something from that, regardless of the time period in which they’re set. (Sony Pictures Classics, PG-13, 93 minutes)

Tom Hanks and director Ron Howard re-team for the religious-lit thriller and hit-in-waiting Angels & Demons, the conspiratorially tinged follow-up to the smash hit The Da Vinci Code, and if there’s really nothing about the movie that screams out for the necessity of its existence, neither will audiences already predisposed toward inking this in their plans over the next couple weeks feel cheated by anything that unfolds onscreen. To the degree that it works, it’s as a lesson in the gravitational pull
of a movie star’s accrued goodwill. Ditching the derided hairstyle of
his first run-through as Harvard professor and religious
symbology expert Robert Langdon, Hanks is the well-oiled pace car that keeps this entire thing moving at a sustained, reasonable clip.

Pulled away from an early morning swim by a representative of the Catholic Church, Langdon is whisked away to Vatican City. There, in the wake of the natural death of a progressive and beloved pope, Langdon is shown evidence of the resurgence of an ancient secret brotherhood known as the Illuminati. A powerful scientific-intellectual brotherhood driven underground centuries ago by the persecution of the church, the Illuminati seem behind a dastardly plot — the kidnapping and announced execution of four favored cardinals, and a hidden bomb made of anti-matter — that leaves less than five hours until a bloodbath that will consume much of Vatican City.

Langdon joins forces with Inspector Olivetti (Pierfrancesco Favino, above right) and Vittoria Vetra (Ayelet Zurer), an enigmatic Italian scientist; together, they embark on a frantic dash through the Vatican’s secretive vault, old cathedrals, sealed crypts and dangerous catacombs, facing snide and stone-faced pushback from Commander Richter (Stellan Skarsgard, looking gassy), the head of the Swiss Guard, the pope’s personal security detail. While Cardinal Strauss (Armin Mueller-Stahl) insists on proceeding with the conclave that will choose the next pope, Camerlengo Patrick McKenna (Ewan McGregor) pushes for extra time and evacuation measures, all while hoping that Langdon and Vetra can untangle a 400-year-old trail of ancient symbols that serve as the Vatican’s best hope for survival.

Regardless of what one typically thinks of his choice in material — and the revisionist haters seem most likely to clamorously cite A Beautiful Mind in their bashings — Howard is surely a highly functional director, and he inflicts no great harm upon the material here. In fact, I’d say he gives it as solid a polish as could be expected while still retaining a reasonable degree of austerity and solemnity. The screenplay, by David Koepp and Akiva Goldsman, doesn’t achieve transcendent moments of cleverness, but it does manage to avoid most of the sludgy pitfalls that plagued The Da Vinci Code, if also coming across as unintentionally silly in the cable news coverage of the Catholic conclave. Its chief problem, though, is that the literary-historical elements of the story that so root it in detail are the same things that work against the film’s time-crunch structure, which doesn’t really play convincingly. Vatican City isn’t the size of Texas, but neither is it a mere four or five city blocks, so the announced public execution/body dumpings of the cardinals (one per hour, starting at 8 o’clock) place imposing demands on the narrative that Koepp and Goldsman never fully solve. Instead, when in a pinch, Langdon scours a map and just blurts out something like, “Angels are pointing the way!” and the audience, unreasonably, is meant to say, “Oh, well, sure, that makes sense.”

The movie is facile, though, and again, that’s a credit to Hanks, who is a smart and intuitive actor, quite apart from being just a likeable one. In addition to just having the authority to convey historical detail and theory in such a compressed fashion, Hanks also has a keen feeling for how much exasperation, assertiveness or swallowed panic to inject into a given moment; when he meets Commander Richter’s snootiness with a wry, “Hey, fellas, you called me,” or argues an important point of timeliness with a pair of Italian cops, it has the ability to blind less critically-leaning minds — temporarily, perhaps, but effectively — to the narrative’s implausabilities. And that, my friends, is the definition of star power — the superhuman ability to effect suspension of disbelief.

Apart from Langdon, though, most of the characters in Angels & Demons don’t tightly hold on to one’s attention. McGregor’s is the flashiest, most substantive supporting role, and he does a fine enough job. But what does it say about me that the character with whom I most identify is an assassin (Nikolaj Lie Kass) who says, “When they call me, it’s so important to them for me to know that they’re doing God’s will, or Allah’s, or Yahweh’s, and I suppose they’re right, because without them I wouldn’t exist”? I’m not sure. But with that line, I found myself pondering a much more interesting filmic spin-off… (Sony, PG-13, 138 minutes)