The movie is named after the Ontario town it takes place in, and Stephen McHattie stars as the local morning drive-time guy. A lot of the descriptions I've read of the movie call him a shock-jock, which made me think of guys like Howard Stern, but this DJ is more of a late-career Don Imus, cranky and cowboy-hatted.
The whole movie takes place at the radio studio during the morning broadcast. After encountering an ominously delirious woman on the road on the way to work, McHattie's DJ commences what seems like a normal morning with his producer (Lisa Houle) and her assistant (Georgina Reilly) until phone calls start to come in about alarming, unexplained riots.
Any filmgoer instantly recognizes that this is some kind of zombie outbreak. Or, if not zombies, a virus that turns normal humans into cannibals. Something along those lines. It has all the earmarks. But, the radio crew is bewildered and doesn't know what's going on, and just goes about their morning slowly beginning to realize the apocalypse is unfolding outside their doors.
The confined setting leads to a few questions -- the studio is in a basement, but why not run up to street level during a commercial (or send the assistant) to see what's going on outside? No one even discusses it until late in the film. There also appears to be a TV in the studio, but they keep it on the BBC, who doesn't seem to know what all is happening. I find it hard to believe affiliates from Toronto or something wouldn't fly over in a helicopter.
Anyway, all that stuff isn't really a big deal -- the movie is good at what it does, which is create a claustrophobic climate and let the actors go at each other. McHattie and Houle are really good as the aging DJ and beleaguered producer. Hrant Alianak is perhaps less effective as a doctor who conveniently shows up to halfway explain the epidemic. His performance seems to strive for some comic moments that are out of place.
The nice thing about this flick that differentiates itself from other zombie flicks is not the confined radio station setting, but the method of transmitting the virus, which has something to do with language. Infected people start obsessively repeating a word as if they've gotten "stuck" on it, then babble incoherently, and, eventually, like mocking-children, repeat whatever they overhear their potential victims saying. It takes a while before this becomes clear, so it adds an additional element of mystery to the movie that is sometimes lacking in zombie flicks, especially now that you can't turn around without running into one.
As the movie progressed I couldn't help but think how much more powerful it would have been as a radio production, along the lines of Orson Welles' version of WAR OF THE WORLDS. Unfortunately there isn't much audience or even medium left for that. Still, after the film was over, I was pleased to read that a version has actually been broadcast as a radio show.
The fact that the main character is a radio jock, the film takes place in a radio station, and the zombie plague is transmitted through verbal communication adds up to a nice little statement about -- something. I'm not 100% sure what that is, and I'm also not 100% sure what the filmmakers think, either, but that's kind of nice, actually. I like it when things ALMOST tie up into a bow, but not quite. You don't want your horror movies too neat and tidy. They should be a little messy.
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