If you are looking for a movie like The Last of Us, then you are in the right place. In the HBO seriesThe Last of Us" has terrifying, thrilling action sequences, but it gains strength when it settles into signature moments. The series is patient: In the pilot, the threat of Cordyceps and Joel's (Pedro Pascal) painful past are laid out in a 30-minute chill episode, and that slow burn continues in the rest of the episodes. This is why the film Pontypool (2008) is worth watching as thematic content on the theme of the outbreak in a low-key style similar to The Last of Us. It's a weird, little movie with a new idea of what a dangerous virus can be that terrifies what can be heard, not what can be seen.
Pontypool puts the viewer inside the chaos
At Beacon Station, shock jockey Grant Muzzy (Stephen McHattie) knows this day will be like no other. From a breaking news release, Muzzy learns about local unrest that is developing into mass hysteria with a large number of victims. This story has not been confirmed by official sources, nor has the reference to rioters acting as cannibals been confirmed. Trapped inside with his crew, Grant finally gets the sensational, big story he's been looking for, he just has to stay alive to keep covering it.
Tony Burgess adapted his novel Pontypool Changes Everything into a radio broadcast and then into a feature script. It's like watching Orson Welles's infamous War of the Worlds, only it's very real, you're stuck in a radio station with the announcers, and the alien invasion is replaced with a threat of a different kind. Directed by Bruce McDonald, Pontypool's small cast is as much in the dark as the film's audience, adding to the atmosphere of uncertainty as information flows to the characters in real time - you know as much as they do. It also helps that the weather is already keeping everyone indoors ahead of the zombie madness.
В The Last of Us and Pontypool depict two different versions of winter
In the sixth episode The Last of Us the series visits the cold, snow-covered high plains of Wyoming, which is a welcome change of pace from Joel and Ellie's (Bella Ramsey) previous urban adventures. They are introduced to the Jackson community, which begins to celebrate Christmas in a picturesque setting with mountains rising in the distance. To be honest, the village seems to have come out of a Hallmark movie rather than a post-apocalyptic show. A harsher, darker winter will fall upon the heroes of Pontypool, an approaching storm that will overwhelm them with snow and solitude. There's no cute, festive Christmas illumination hanging overhead, it's Valentine's Day, dreary, devoid of love, and this holiday will not be remembered for all reasons.
Muzzy was fired from the city and sent to Pontypool, a small town in the province of Ontario, to freeze his ass off. The DJ in the cowboy hat adds liqueur to his coffee to start his morning off right, not really fighting the urge to go back to the provocateur that got him into trouble in the first place. This happens to the amusement of “tech cowgirl” Laurel Anne (Georgina Reilly) and to the delight of producer Sydney (Lisa Houle). When Dr. Mendez (Grant Alianak) breaks into the station, he provides some welcome lightness while also trying to find answers to questions about the central outbreak. Mendez keeps the information he is given interesting by his eccentric delivery and the way he runs around. “Let’s leave the sound here with us,” he tells Grant, explaining how some infected victim is “looking for voices.” It will become vicious."
Stephen McHattie makes Pontypool what it is
Game The Last of Us would not have been so successful without Pascal's performance as Joel. If the character manages to win his trust, which in itself is not easy, he will receive a loyal ally. Pascal pays homage to the original video game hero while adding his own desensitized, jaded perspective to the live-action game. The same can be said for Stephen McHattie as Grant Muzzy: the actor brings an edge to the shock jock and makes the film entertaining when not in the zombie plot. “Mrs. French’s cat is missing,” Grant opens the film in a quiet tone, “there are notices posted all over town.” The oscilloscope's sound waves are the only visual image on the screen, gradually distorting in the dark. “Something has to happen, something big,” he continues. "But something is always going to happen." Strange, mysterious lines convey the alluring radio characteristics of the presenter and hint at approaching danger.
Muzzy is restless, sarcastically reading out weather reports, school closures and other reports from a small town that he has nothing to do with. “So our main story for today,” he begins, “is a big, cold, boring, dark, white, empty, endless, off-kilter, seasonal affective disorder, fucking killing me now weather front that will last all day.” McHattie's intensity comes as no surprise; he is a stunning character actor with a pitted face and a heavy, gravelly voice. In the film Watchmen (2009), he played a small role as the original Nite Owl. In Come to Daddy (2019), he plays Elijah Wood's estranged father. On Seinfeld, he was Dr. Reston, the manipulative psychotherapist seated in an ornate chair across from the tormented Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfus). The nefarious Reston is a complete contrast to the neurotic Elaine, and the live studio audience eats him up.
In the first half The Last of Us Anna Torv made a big impression as Tess, which is no surprise to anyone who watched her in Fringe. Continuing with the Fringe alumni theme, McHattie guest starred in the season two episode "Fracture". He plays a mad colonel who pursues a greater goal without caring about the collateral or direct damage he causes to the people turned into bombs. Grant Muzzy is by no means a villain, but the way McHattie plays the role makes you feel like he can lose or be in control depending on the circumstances. When a live call becomes too much for him, Grant loses his temper. "Is this really happening?" - he mutters furiously to Sydney, and the producer fails to calm him down. Of course, he gets proof that the town of Pontypool is indeed going to hell.
Pontypool won't stop at cozy radio
In the fungal wasteland The Last of Us Cordyceps infection is a sickening, nightmarish body horror. Runners, clickers and bloaters are a terrible prison a person can end up in. Back in the pilot's 30-minute cold opener, an early glimpse of an infected victim is taken in the shadows, a foreshadowing of what will be fully revealed in later episodes when Joel's daughter Sarah (Nico Parker) sees writhing tendrils crawling out of her elderly neighbor's mouth. For first viewing The Last of Us doesn't rely on head-to-toe prosthetics to create scary zombies, but goes the supernatural route. A person's ordinary appearance deteriorates until what remains in its place seems absurd and wrong. The film Pontypool conveys the same disturbing effect, with ordinary citizens not only turning into hungry cannibals who attack without mercy, but also committing violence in strange ways.
An eyewitness calls the Mayak station and tells how a crowd is strangling a car with frightened people inside. The crowd, growing in number, not only climbs the hood and roof, it imitates the noise of windshield wipers. The film takes place too early in the outbreak for the infected to get a neat and tidy name, at best their bizarre behavior is referred to as "piranhas" or "bugs". Director Bruce MacDonald wisely decides to show little muttering zombies when they appear, stripping them of their humanity: bloody hands tapping on the station's windows, or shadows falling across their faces to obscure any recognizable features. It's not the vicious bite that turns the victim, meaning Grant can't take the usual preventive actions to stop the infection when the man-eating mob eventually arrives on the Beacon's doorstep.
Pontypool is an additional help to the hybrid style The Last of Us - the slow development of the human drama before the start of the frantic attack of the infected. While Tess and Joel use the radio for a security code system, sticking to songs from the 60s, 70s and 80s, there is no Depeche Mode in Pontypool. Grant has a little wind-up monkey toy to report the latest news - but he still won't tolerate playing with pins. “Do we really want to ensure genocide with elevator music?” he asks. The time has come for a plan and he is forced to become a man of action, there is no room for dead air.
So if you want to watch a movie like The Last of Us, then we recommend the movie Pontypool.
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