恐怖片在展現(xiàn)形式上分為好幾種，一種是單純的嚇人，通過構(gòu)建很多精彩的場(chǎng)景來實(shí)現(xiàn)視覺刺激的最大化，讓觀眾看一眼就魂飛魄散。一種是利用心理刺激來渲染恐怖氛圍。

觀眾們?cè)谟^看的時(shí)候，通過片中給予的線索，不斷地將自己代入進(jìn)去，然后再結(jié)合一系列的心理刺激，幻想著自己是劇中人，應(yīng)該會(huì)有什么樣的反應(yīng)，最終隨著劇中人物的跌宕起伏，觀眾們的內(nèi)心也會(huì)坐過山車。這是兩種比較常見的恐怖片表現(xiàn)形式。

當(dāng)一部恐怖片的預(yù)算可以無止境的時(shí)候，沒有哪一個(gè)導(dǎo)演不會(huì)想將這樣的兩種形式結(jié)合起來，反之，做好一種就已經(jīng)不錯(cuò)。如果你預(yù)算還是捉襟見肘，那就要考慮推陳出新了，比如說今天給大家推薦的這部小成本恐怖片《澎堤池》。

《澎堤池》的成本有多小，看完了的人們自然知道，固定演員只有兩位，范圍擴(kuò)大點(diǎn)的話，演員也只有三位，中間還死了一位，不過后來補(bǔ)上了。場(chǎng)景更是簡(jiǎn)單的可憐，只有一個(gè)錄音棚，除了后來對(duì)于視覺刺激的營(yíng)造商，導(dǎo)演搭上了一些被稀釋了的血漿之外，剩下的十幾個(gè)群演，可能是最大的花銷。

《澎堤池》是一部通過大量對(duì)白來彰顯恐怖環(huán)境，最終有所諷刺的故事。一個(gè)小鎮(zhèn)上，有一個(gè)小小的廣播站，站上只有三兩個(gè)人。廣播站的日常就是播送一些小鎮(zhèn)上雞毛蒜皮的事情。然而這樣的寧?kù)o很快就被打破了。

一場(chǎng)暴風(fēng)雪使得廣播站的日常有了變更，男主播在來的路上遇見了一個(gè)奇怪的女人，他起初沒有當(dāng)回事，后來在來到廣播站后，接聽熱心聽眾的電話的時(shí)候，得知了鎮(zhèn)上正在發(fā)生一些奇怪的事情，人們好像瘋了一樣地到處亂竄，且相互之間不斷地啃食。

聽到這個(gè)消息，主播還以為有人在惡作劇，但是很快，他就打消了這個(gè)念頭，原因很簡(jiǎn)單，聽眾反應(yīng)的情況正在上演。一位醫(yī)生從廣播站的窗口爬了進(jìn)來，后來，廣播站的一個(gè)小姑娘就發(fā)瘋了。故事愈演愈烈，醫(yī)生后來也發(fā)瘋了。廣播站就剩下了兩個(gè)主播。

兩個(gè)人在逃避追殺的時(shí)候，無意之間洞破了其中的秘密。于是，他們想到了利用自己的專業(yè)，拯救整個(gè)鎮(zhèn)上的人。然而這個(gè)時(shí)候，絕望的消息一再傳來。本片充分利用了小成本影片的特點(diǎn)，將一個(gè)原本很無聊的故事拍得不那么無聊了。

作為一部準(zhǔn)末日題材的影片，本片并沒有像很多恐怖片那樣過度渲染外界場(chǎng)景，而是另辟蹊徑的使用有限空間內(nèi)的人們的猜疑來將這種大環(huán)境由內(nèi)而外地進(jìn)行了擴(kuò)散。很明顯，這種擴(kuò)散的方式是成功的。

觀眾們很容易通過演員們傳播的情緒，感受到那種恐怖的氣息。但另一方面，本片又不完全是恐怖的，如果你深究其中的內(nèi)涵，就會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)，本片從頭到尾說的就是一件諷刺的事情。掌握了話語權(quán)的一方，對(duì)于各種各樣的詞語都有著解釋權(quán)，通過曲解詞語的意思，最終引發(fā)了混亂，這就是本片的另一層含義，其實(shí)也是本質(zhì)含義。

通曉了這個(gè)含義之后，本片看上去就更加的不恐怖了，反而是有一種特別的趣味在里面。如果你按照嚴(yán)格的邏輯來衡量本片的話，《澎堤池》是一部非常不合格的作品。因?yàn)檫@個(gè)故事幾乎是沒頭沒尾的。這樣的故事很大程度上會(huì)降低人們的專注度的。

但是本片還有一個(gè)比較好的點(diǎn)，那就是總會(huì)在你昏昏欲睡的時(shí)候，給你一些線索，然后激起你的好奇心的。比如說在渲染外界環(huán)境中的人們開始自相殘殺的時(shí)候，窗戶口就有一個(gè)醫(yī)生爬了進(jìn)來。

然后給大家描述外面的環(huán)境等等，這些新鮮的刺激被有目的的投放進(jìn)影片中，最終沒有讓本片徹底的喪失趣味性。小成本電影的特點(diǎn)就是沒錢，然而沒錢的優(yōu)點(diǎn)也是有的，那就是將既有的道具以及場(chǎng)景中的細(xì)節(jié)，最大程度地利用好。

這些細(xì)節(jié)本身不具有什么太大的意義，如果你的預(yù)算非常多的話，但事實(shí)上在預(yù)算緊張的情況下，這些細(xì)節(jié)卻可以成為一部影片的亮點(diǎn)，就比如說那個(gè)隔音效果非常好的播音室。

比如說大量運(yùn)用的第二人稱視角可以有效地削減預(yù)算，只通過聲音傳遞不對(duì)稱信息最終可以讓外部環(huán)境更加的撲朔迷離等等。這些細(xì)節(jié)的鋪陳使得本片一定程度上并沒有因?yàn)轭A(yù)算而有太多的限制，反而是形成了自己的特色。同時(shí)讓觀眾們忽視了本片的邏輯硬傷。

這就是認(rèn)真帶給一部本不是很出色的電影的回饋。一方面讓導(dǎo)演很好地完成了自己的作品，另一方面，觀眾們?cè)谟^看的時(shí)候，又不會(huì)顯得那么無聊乏味。沒有血漿，也不會(huì)有大量的僵尸來襲，然而本片借助一種似是而非的聲音，讓觀眾們自覺地沉浸在了一探究竟當(dāng)中，這一點(diǎn)，聲音功不可沒。

然而就是這一點(diǎn)，我們才真正地看到了恐怖片的希望，有限的預(yù)算內(nèi)，無限的放大細(xì)節(jié)加上想象，未必不是一種好方法，你看，本片也能嚇到你，不是嗎？

……

你好，再見

聲明：本文為個(gè)人作業(yè)，非授權(quán)任何人不得截取、轉(zhuǎn)載、剽竊、或用于商業(yè)用途。

As a low-budget film, Pontypool (2008) presents a zombie crisis within a radio station and explores the topics around communication: how does language work, how do people define insiders and outsiders, and how do the ideologies behind words enclose different communities. Deshane and Morton (2018) pay attention the “haunting” history and significance of the marginalized people in Canada, and interpret the movie as an apocalypse of isolating ourselves or reaching seeking out the strangers. Kirsch and Stancliff (2018) analyze the movie with a focus on the semiotic natures of languages.

By introducing a “word virus,” Pontypool first and foremost demonstrates the fact that people can hardly understand the world without utilizing languages. While more and more people are infected by the “word transmission” disease, languages as symbolic systems invade and penetrate in every aspects of our life. People are introduced to an incomplete and inaccurate reality that constructed by languages and can no longer rationalize the Real. Kirsch and Stancliff (2018) points out that the frequently used “ready” terms of (familial) intimacy, such as “honey” and “I love you,” have the greatest potential of violence and contagion in the movie. Deshane and Morton (2018) also suggest that intimate people are more easily infected in the film, since they share the same worldview, sense of community, ideology, and thus discourse.

Indeed, the film introduces audiences with an experience through which understandable words becomes more and more ambiguous in meanings. In the opening scene, Grant’s voice is broadcasting a local gossip about a lost cat. At first, the story is straightforward; however when Grant connects young woman’s name, the bridge and the town together, the information becomes confusing, especially when the aural description is our only source. “Pont de Pool, Pontypool, Panty pool, Pont de Flaque (1:28)” Those similar sounds becomes cognitively meaningless. This “sounds of words become meaningless” process is even more intense in the obituary program (49:20), when Grant introduces a dozen of local residents’ names, their ages, their relationship and way of death. Since the audiences could hardly follow these information as Grant speaks, and understanding these information does help the main plot of the film, the sounds of words, the linguistic essence of words, and the meanings of words dissolve from the Symbolic which we know.

The Symbolic is not only endangered through a linguistic experience, but also challenged by the collapse of orders and meanings. On one hand, the Other per se is in crisis, since the capacity of the state to safeguard the stability is often questioned in post-apocalyptic zombie films; on the other hand, Zombies as non-subjective existence between living and dying, between human and monster, between being an acquaintance and being a stranger directly invalidate the Symbolic which both contains order and chaos (Kirsch and Stancliff, 2018). The repressive state force in the end of the film also signals a failure of ideological apparatuses to maintain order (ibid). Through a fluid division of insiders and outsiders, Pontypool also points out the reality in which people’s identities and meanings are fictionally assigned by the Other. Deshane and Morton (2018) suggest that zombies as a horde are inherent metaphor of foreign invasion, and the film believes that both isolation and insider’s language, which labels and marginalizes outsiders, are infectious and even destructive. The division between insider and outsider is questioned more when survivors and zombies are drawn to the same camp against the state force (Kirsch and Stancliff, 2018).

The zombie experience further emphasizes that a community is neither defined by people’s physical appearance nor geographical boundary. Firstly, social connections and bonds, instead of bodily differences, are the criteria of being an insider or an outsider (Deshane and Morton, 2018). Becoming zombies is a process of becoming strangers, and Laurel-Ann’s infection demonstrates. Despite being a beloved college, she is considered a stranger and a dangerous threat as soon as she is infected; when she failed to join the zombie community, Laurel-Ann as a stranger on both survivors’ and zombies’ sides vomits herself to death. Secondly, different from nationality, which is empowered by national boundaries as colonial and artificial outcomes, the sense of community is generated through shared ideology, recognition on the unwritten rules, and labels. Transmitting through English language, the word virus in Pontypool cannot be confined by locations or physical barricades (Kirsch and Stancliff, 2018). In real life, the widespread of the coronavirus also proves nationalists’ wrong impression on the concept of community and commonality.

Instead, what contagious is the ideologies which are articulated within words and coded in languages, and it is through people’s silent or expressive agreement on certain ideologies that they fuse into a community. On one hand, different meanings derive from the same signified under different Master Signifiers; on the other hand, by changing the meanings of words, people can question and modify the ideologies behind. While English language and whiteness is symbolic of vicious infections and invasion, the nature and significance of this “Pontypool Massacre” can be considered in at least three perspectives. In a Master Signifier of reflective decolonization, such as the article by Deshane and Morton (2018), the infection through English words only is a clear sarcasm on a hegemonic worldview. This narrative is emphasized through the brown-face Lawrence of Arabia performance, signaling exoticism, racism, and other colonial legacies in Canadian small towns (ibid.). BBC Word broadcaster Nigel Healing, nevertheless, insists to describe the whole incident as a separationist riot, demonstrating his late colonial Master Signifier (Kirsch and Stancliff, 2018). For most of the audiences, English language is perhaps a neutral design for the plot and doesn’t carry significant meaning. To disrupt the relations between signifiers and signified in English and the embedded ideologies, Grant and Sydney abandon linguistic common sense and thus remove the division of insiders and outsiders. As Deshane and Morton (2018) put, “All forms of strangeness are removed in this act; there is no outsider; and for a moment, there is no language.” For a moment, a signifier cannot and doesn’t have to find a signified, and speaking and listening English no longer provides meanings to the receivers, just like Grant’s obituary program, like a song by incomprehensible language, and like chatter-chanting music such as Balinese kecak. Although people can no longer understand the reality through the previous symbolic system, they encounter the Real, the realm where word virus not only is incapable of attacking, but also aims to protect. When a pianist gives up pianos as a rationalizing and documenting tool of “music,” he or she may lose 88 pitches, but gains the potentiality to recognize all sounds in the world.

Work Cited:

Deshane, Evelyn, and R. Travis Morton. "The Words Change Everything: Haunting, Contagion And The Stranger In Tony Burgess’S Pontypool". London Journal Of Canadian Studies, 2018. UCL Press, doi:10.14324/111.444.ljcs.2018v33.005.

Kirsch, Sharon J., and Michael Stancliff. ""How Do You Not Understand A Word?": Language As Contagion And Cure In Pontypool". Journal Of Narrative Theory, vol 48, no. 2, 2018, pp. 252-278. Project Muse, doi:10.1353/jnt.2018.0010.

小成本驚悚片，甚至算不上恐怖片，因?yàn)閱适漠嬅婧苌伲瘸潭炔粔?。整體沉悶，4個(gè)人，一個(gè)廣播站，幾間房，演了一個(gè)半小時(shí)，其實(shí)前半小時(shí)完全沒有意義，都是對(duì)話，刪去也不影響全片。澎堤池是講法語的一個(gè)加拿大村莊，村子里很多人變喪尸襲擊別人。在后面第4個(gè)人出現(xiàn)后，氣氛開始有點(diǎn)緊張，引出主題：病毒感染人類發(fā)狂，病毒是靠某個(gè)英語單詞復(fù)制、傳播的，感染源是英語單詞，他們開始說很多話試圖找出致病的單詞以及解藥。最后找到了解藥——“Kill is kiss.”男主持人親吻并用這句話救了女導(dǎo)播，他們?cè)噲D通過大喇叭傳播，拯救更多人時(shí)，突然聽到法語倒計(jì)時(shí)，接著一顆炸彈的聲音傳來。村莊應(yīng)該是被毀滅了，這個(gè)表現(xiàn)方式還是挺含蓄的。爆炸前最后一幕女導(dǎo)播去親吻男主持人，有點(diǎn)浪漫。

彩蛋是男女主角坐在一起?？?。

來電影群：