“For your safety, please refrain from the following: all terms of endearment….”

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “What in the world does Pontypool have to do with Valentines?” You’re thinking, “How can a Canadian horror film featuring zombies created by a virus spread by language have any connection to a holiday centered around love?” You’re thinking—

WOAH, nevermind! I’m just gonna get out of your head now.

But let me explain to you the opportunity you have here. You know how five years ago like, ten people started talking about how Die Hard was their favourite Christmas film, and now hipster internet people are all jumping on the hoardwagon? This is your chance to get in on the ground floor with a new Valentine’s Day classic. This is your chance to say, “I was watching Pontypool on Valentine’s Day before all those other hipsters were doing it before it was cool.”

Because Pontypool is a Valentine’s Day movie, for a couple of reasons.

First, it’s a Valentine’s movie for the same reasons that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. In Die Hard you’ve got the Christmas party, the trees…heck, the whole reason John McClane is in L.A. at all is to spend time with his wife over Christmas.

And you can be forgiven if you’ve forgotten this but Pontypool takes place on Valentine’s Day. (You can’t be forgiven if you haven’t seen it though. Seriously you’ll get to those pearly gates and Saint Peter will say, “Well you were a pretty good person, but you never watched Pontypool, so you go to hell.”)

At the beginning of the film Grant Mazzy and Laurel Anne exchange, and later Sydney Briar laments the fact that she forgot to give Laurel Ann her Valentine. Pontypool doesn’t dwell on its setting in time like Die Hard does, but it’s there if you pay attention.

And the fact that Pontypool takes place on Valentine’s Day isn’t just window dressing. The holiday is significant to the larger themes of the movie, which leads into my second point.

Pontypool is about love and relationships.

Think about it. The zombie-things in Pontypool (unless you’re a massive nerd like me you can be forgiven for not knowing that they’re called “conversationalists”) are people for whom the ability to communicate has broken down. You can see them trying to break that barrier between thoughts and words, but somewhere in their brains the process had gone completely and horribly wrong, leading to them attacking those they’re trying to communicate with.

I don’t have to spell this out do I? That’s how relationships break down. Failure to communicate. Somewhere, somehow you know what you want to say, but the other person is hearing something completely different. At first you’re confused. Then you’re frustrated. Then you attack.

What follows is a bit of a generalized spoiler so stop reading now if you’ve not seen the movie (Saint Peter is watching). But the solution to the movie’s dilemma is in repairing that block in communication, of moving beyond words into a kind of deeper understanding, of forging your own personal language with the person you love.

So yeah, go ahead and watch your sappy rom-coms this year for Valentine’s Day if you want. But if you want a film with a message about the dangers and difficulties of love and why it’s worth it to push through them anyway, you can do a lot worse than Pontypool.