Carriers (2009)
Written and directed by the brothers Àlex and David Pastor this was their first film to get a large showing at the box office. While not the first project either of the two have worked on it easily proves that they know exactly how to put together a well laid out post apocalyptic film.
Set shortly after an unknown outbreak spread across the land killing a majority of the populace we follow a group of 4 friends (two brothers and their women they are dating) who are trying to reach an old beach house they know of which is so secluded they believe they can live there peacefully. One of my favorite aspects of this is we never see exactly the horrors of the outbreak - just the immediate after effects. It is not so far past the occurrence that everything has been looted, destroyed, or worn down due to time, but far enough that seeing other humans is rare. When we do see remnants of humanity - it’s a world where clearly everyone is out for themselves.
We are introduced to Brian (Chris Pine) the outgoing brother, Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci) who is more the brain to Brian’s brawn, Brian’s girlfriend Bobby (Piper Perabo), and the girl Danny is interested in Kate (Emily Vanvamp) and are easily shown who is who, their personalities, and how they interact with one another. It’s four people in a very tense situation and they show how it can grate on their nerves and still have them come together. As mentioned above it’s a very desolate area they are in and while they do meet up with 3 separate groups of people it is just to help advance the story – the story being our set of 4 friends.
Most post apocalyptic films take the easy way out and bring up zombies or man v man with everyone out for themselves. This story shows how the group progresses from trying to help others, to being harmed by others, to blatantly in one case on Brian’s part just taking what they need. Even when this happens though the true fleshing out of both caring, understanding, and all of the ‘good’ parts of human nature has not been left out. I am not going to focus much on the three groups of people they meet up with (aside to point out that less time is spent with each group as time goes on) aside from the first group as it was a father (Christopher Meloni) and his infected daughter (Kiernan Shipka.) These were the most interesting of the non-main characters in the film as Christopher’s character is just a man who wants to save his daughter who won’t take no for an answer and is able to do so with words while Kiernan, for being so young, was able to play such a perfect roll.
The movie knew how to bring up tension, show off human nature, and kill off important cast members without it seeming abrupt or without purpose. Everything fit well together and I cannot wait to see what the Pastor brothers put together next and can only hope that it is in the horror genre. If you are a fan of post apocalyptic films this is probably the best one created in 2009.
