Spoiler alert: If you’ve ever watched the end of cult Canadian horror Pontypool and wondered, “Wait, how did this cunning story of a virus communicated by language suddenly become, well, this???” then you probably don’t know the work of director Bruce McDonald well enough. Much as Re-Animator madman Stuart Gordon’s horror work was always informed by his background with the game-changing Organic Theater Company, so too McDonald was forged by the experimentalism of Toronto New Wave. Catch his early wildness with the feature debut of the man once dubbed the Bad Boy of Canadian Cinema – a bizarro road trip with a mixtape soundtrack including the Razorbacks, Nash the Slash, and the Ramones. – Richard Whittaker
