Director Bruce McDonald discusses his forthcoming film Pontypool

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Canadian director Bruce McDonald chose the Junction as the location for his forthcoming horror flick Pontypool not only for the abandoned church in which his film shoot is set up, but also because the area is "home" for much of the cast and crew.

"We were about to set out on a survey of a number of locations across the city and the first place we came to was here ... and I thought 'This is perfect'," McDonald said. "Not only was it perfect in terms of a look (for the film), it was perfect because we weren't all the way out in Scarberia or Hamilton and a lot of the crew lives around here.

"Even I can bicycle to work inside of 20 minutes," said the Annex resident.

It could be a first: a bloody horror film with zero emissions.

"I liked the idea of shooting within the city," McDonald told The Guardian. "There's a lot of great shops and cafes within walking distance from here ... so I picked this location not only for the look of the place but also since we live downtown, we don't have to travel an hour each day to and from the location. That's something the crew appreciates."

Pontypool - named after the smallish village of Pontypool, Ont. in the Kawartha Lakes region - promises to be a provocative thriller. McDonald, director of films such as Highway 61, Hard Core Logo, and more recently, The Tracey Fragments, said the flick is set in a radio station in Pontypool where one day the morning team starts taking reports of extreme, bloody incidents of violence occurring in town. As the story unfolds, the radio staff soon realizes the violence that is ripping society apart is due to a virus being spread through the English language.

That in turn poses a problem for a yappy radio jock and his staff holed up in the broadcast booth housed in the basement of the town's church as a slaughter rages beyond its walls.

Starring Stephen McHattie (The Rocket: The Maurice Richard Story), Reilly (The Tracey Fragments) and Lisa Houle (Cold Squad, Due South), McDonald was positively beaming while taking a break from the film's shoot inside the former Victoria-Royce Presbyterian Church (190 Medland Ave.) on May 26 to discuss the filming of his first horror movie.

With the bulk of the cast and crew living in the Bloor West Village-Junction and Annex neighbourhoods, McDonald (who lives in Little Italy) added the entire operation is keen to be within a stone's throw from home.

"To be in this neighbourhood, in this city, to be making a movie ... it feels good to the crew and to the actors to be here versus being outside of the city," he said.

No doubt the film shoot will turn a few heads in the coming weeks when the crew begins filming the exterior scenes for the movie that involves recreating a massive snow storm outside of the church.

McDonald, 48, was born in Kingston and graduated from the film program at Ryerson University. He grew up in Etobicoke's Rexdale area and attended North Albion Collegiate high school where he began making zombie movies on an 8mm camera using his friends and teachers as the cast.

Over the course of his career, he's worked with the likes of legendary Canuck filmmakers Atom Egoyan and Norman Jewison before directing his first major feature film Roadkill in 1990. The jovial director has also shot episodes of primetime TV series Degrassi: The Next Generation, Queer as Folk, ReGenesis and This Is Wonderland.

If all goes according to plan, Pontypool should be ready in time to debut at the Toronto International Film Festival in September, McDonald said.