Carriers (2009)

As is usually the case when I stop over at a friend's place, I never know what kind of movie I'm going to end up seeing. A lot of the more classic movies that I really should see have usually been seen by at least one of my friends, so as a group you usually never pick something someone has already seen. Because of this, and the fact that my buddy Jed has that wonderful thing called Netflix, we usually end up finding some totally random movie we've never heard about. Today that turned out to be Carriers starring Chris Pine of Star Trek fame. There's even an unplanned link to The Prestige from yesterday. If you're curious what this piece of film is all about, all you have to do is take a short hop to the other side of the jump!


When my friends and I saw this film on Netflix, at first we thought it was another cheap zombie movie, since it talked about "infected" and having to avoid them. But it turns out that's not really the case. There are no zombies here. This is more like Contagion if the virus had won, and the film picks up after the world is basically gone. It's never explained how long since it all happened, but it's clearly already well after the fact and the main characters are well aware of the situation having lived it for some time now.

It seems these teens know quite a bit more than we do

When we first catch up with our primary cast, they're cruising along a long empty back road, drinking beers with surf boards on the roof of their car. They look like they're your stereotypical stupid teens going on a joyride just as the world is going to go crazy. At least that's what I thought. My assumption was very quickly proven wrong when they meet another person blocking the road, asking for gas, and the teens seem to automatically go into a routine, rolling up windows and getting very serious. "She's got it." one of them says, and they book it out of there without even sticking around to ask questions.

Like Zombieland, our team of four lives by a set of rules to survive. They're not as well demonstrated as in that comedic undead flick, but a few keys ones are quickly explained at the start just so we have some basics to start with. Things like always wear your mask around infected people due to their highly contagious breath, and disinfect everything they've touched in the last 24 hours. So far sticking to their rules has served them well. Unfortunately, to survive you need supplies, and that can lead to risks of infection.

The gang need supplies

The acting here was quite well done. The cast wasn't spectacular in their performances, but they were decent. Definitely never bad. Chris Pine obviously takes center stage as our main protagonist, Brian Green, and the leader of the group. He comes across as a bit of a jock, racing his car while drinking, and the only one of the group to have a gun. His younger brother Danny Green (Lou Taylor Pucci) is the brains, having been on the verge of being accepted into Yale before everything ended. He's also the one to narrate the rules at the start and he brings them up from time to time. It seems like a safe bet that he's the one that came up with the rules, but this movie just loves to play on what the audience might assume.

Next we have the girls of the group. Kate (Emily VanCamp) seems to be either a stranger they picked up, or maybe an acquaintance of Danny's, but they both insist that she isn't his girlfriend, even though it's clear there's something between them. Bobby is Brian's girlfriend, played by Piper Parabo. It's actually Piper (who you seen in that first image after the intro) also had a bit of a solid role in The Prestige as well, playing the character of Julia McCullough. Piper Parabo and Chris Pine aren't the only recognizable faces though. I also recognized Christopher Meloni as a Law and Order star, and Mark Moses who I remembered from Mad Men.

Be careful around the infected. They're highly contagious!

The effects in the film are done really well, even if there aren't a ton, but whenever they're needed, they look really good. It's kept simple, and thus is very effective. Most of the thrills come from the situations they encounter along their road-trip to the coast. They come across several varied (and very possible) scenarios along the way, and I enjoyed each one. There's really not a lot of action though, so it did kinda feel like not much was happening sometimes. There are however plenty of different settings, places, and situations, both at night and day, so when I think about it I can't really say that nothing happened.

Somewhat predictably, the threat isn't always the infected

I enjoyed watching Carriers, although the meaning of the title never really gets touched on. I think maybe they were just running out of terms for a thriller about a deadly disease. The movie is on the tad predicable side too, but the decent performances and the few times they play on what you assume to be the case, tended to balance it out. It's an entertaining little story about some teens just wanting to see the ocean one last time in a horrific world filled with death. I liked that it took place well after the catastrophe, and our teens weren't stupid stereotypes. It's not an edge of your seat kind of thriller, but I certainly didn't mind watching it either. My friends liked it right along with me too. Check it out, I found it on the Canadian Netflix, but I'm sure it's in other places as well.