Shock-jock Grant Mazzy is a cocky, crusty radio talk show host in the town of Pontypool, Ontario. On one blizzardy morning in Pontypool, strange events begin to occur in the town leading up to reports of rioting and slaughter in the streets. The tow…
Shock-jock Grant Mazzy is a cocky, crusty radio talk show host in the town of Pontypool, Ontario. On one blizzardy morning in Pontypool, strange events begin to occur in the town leading up to reports of rioting and slaughter in the streets. The townsfolk have become zombified through unknown causes and they begin hunting down and killing each other, while anxious and lurid reports of the mayhem trickle into a now perplexed and bewildered Mazzy and the two other employees of the radio station (set in the basement of a local church).
Gradually, Mazzy and his producer begin to understand the nature of the virus that has changed Pontypool. The virus that has infected the minds of the townspeople uses language to extend and propagate itself. More specifically, it is carried only by the English language. French and other languages remain uninfected. Even more specifically, it seems to be triggered by one English word in particular in which the virus has lodged itself and through which it spreads itself between minds — the word “honey”. The epidemic spread initially, it seems, when an elderly woman advertised for her lost cat whose name was “Honey”.
As McDonald described it,
“There are three stages to this virus. The first stage is you might begin to repeat a word. Something gets stuck. And usually it’s words that are terms of endearment like sweetheart or honey. The second stage is your language becomes scrambled and you can’t express yourself properly. The third stage you become so distraught at your condition that the only way out of the situation you feel, as an infected person, is to try and chew your way through the mouth of another person.”
LINK -- https://longsworde.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/the-zombies-of-pontypool-language-as-a-virus/
