Based on Tony Burgess’ novel Pontypool Changes Everything, Bruce McDonald’s latest creation will likely be referred to as “that zombie movie” by those who can’t remember its alliterative title. In reality, despite its gory moments, the film owes more of a debt to Roland Barthes and Alfred Hitchcock than George A. Romero. Set in the dead of an Ontario winter, it takes place almost entirely in the bowels of a church that acts as the slapdash headquarters for the titular small town’s radio station. When calamity strikes in the form of a glut of unexplained deaths, the station’s hard-bitten shock jock, Grant Mazzy (the gruffly magnetic Stephen McHattie), becomes the voice of reason in a sea of insanity. Too bad talking is the problem: it would seem the English language is what’s triggering the killer virus. A billet-doux for book nerds, McDonald’s film has Mazzy and his producer (Lisa Houle) playing word association games, comparing each other’s phrases to shitty haikus and employing hysterically terrible French while trying to outwit the single-minded mob. With most of the violence happening off-screen, Pontypool turns the horror genre on its head and flirts, surprisingly, with sophistication. In a cowboy hat.—Stéphanie Verge

Public screening: Friday, Sept. 12, 5 p.m., Varsity 8