Carriers
| release date | September 4 2009 |
| studio | Paramount Vantage |
| director | Àlex Pastor, David Pastor |
| writer | Àlex Pastor, David Pastor |
| starring | Lou Taylor Pucci, Chris Pine, Piper Perabo, Emily VanCamp |
| rating | PG13 |
| site | carriersmovie.com |
| trailer 1 | Trailer #1 |
1 Comments
What made this movie work was Chris Pine’s since of humor at even the most tense moments of the movie, all together the movie was fantastic using little or no blood and gore it was able to pull of the horror elements. It’s one of those the survival movies that keep you guessing and going what the hell is next. *Spoilers Follow* The movie doesn’t give any explanation of what caused the virus, but it works. Carriers opens with the epidemic in full effect instead of the normal build of plot, characters and then oh shit the world is ending crap. It begins with the four lead characters driving threw Texas trying to escape to a place were there can remain quarantined and safe until the epidemic is over. The way this movie draws you in is amazing, I myself was disappointed when it was over cause I wanted to see more and have the struggle for survival continue, all in all this movie was tense, humorous at times and just a great story of survival during a worldwide epidemic plague. well recommended.
An gripping, character driven, bleak, haunting and devastating psychological/virus/drama that was brutally realistic. This was definitely a slow burner when it came to pace but the solid performances, some creepy and tense moments kept me interested. Sure there could of been more horror elements added to make it even more horrific and to speed things up and there were a couple of plot holes here and there but there was a pretty good novel effort to be found in here and the filming kind of had an vintige, low budget feel that made everthing realistic. Don’t be fooled by the cover this is not a horror movie but more of a unsettling drama about human condition, survival and the end of humanity and a decent one at that. Overall this is not a must see and is more of a rental but if you like movies dealing with viruses I recommend it because it’s one of the smarter ones out there right now.
Ergh….. I dont know that to think about this movie! It might be pretty realistic, but it is also very depressing and the ending seems pointless.
This isn’t a zombie movie at all! It is just a movie about a deadly pandemic, and a group of young people trying to avoid getting infected. The characters aren’t particularly interesting, and neither is the plot.
Though this movie might be realistic, the story is boring, and over all this movie isnt really worth checking out. There are tons of movie is this genre that are WAY better, such as 28 days later, Dawn of the Dead, Zombieland etc.
This movie was boring and slow, it felt like it was going no where.
a very interesting version of the typical virus-erases-mankind story. No gore, no zombies but a brillant depressing atmosphere, good plot and 4 surprisingly great actors. well recommended!
What’s funny (yet probably sad to the actor!) is the story’s central character isn’t even shown on the film’s poster! What gives?!? Anyways…Carriers is a very well made film, and like others are saying, it’s more of a tense drama than horror. The actors all did a great job (and who can deny the eye candy known as Chris Pine?), and the story is plausible enough. My only complaint is the bleak ending. I don’t mind downer endings (loved The Mist!), but the vagueness of what happens to some of the characters leaves the story feeling incomplete. I do recommend though.
Really good movie. It is everything, emotionally intense, intriguing, realistic,depressing and morbid, and very disturbing. The ending fits for this type of movie. It is the apocalypse type of movie. So a bleak ending is not terrible. It is more realistic anyway.
I dug it. It was a character movie and not a big action movie or a straight up horror movie. Lou Taylor Pucci continues to be awesome in everything I see him in. He should be a star. Chris Pine was…well, I think JJ Abrams seen this and thats whay he got the part of James T. Kirk. It tells a good story with good characters. If you like post apocalyptic movies or want to see a good story being told with minimal effort. Check this shit out. It really leaves me with one big question… Why isn’t Lou Tayor Pucci in more movies?
I agree with fathermalachi.It was an amazing film for character base and also great acting! Lou Taylor Pucci and Piper Perabo were absolutely amazing! Chris Pine annoyed me but I think that was just his character.He was definitely a believable ass! The film also manages to be very suspenseful without relying on fake scares or big horror or action.You just fear for these people so much because they were really great.the director picked an amazing cast!
Awful and pointlesse movie. Its like Zombieland, but no zombies, no nice characters, not funny or anything else. Its like the movie doesnt exists.
I don’t know what to think of it…
Entertaining film. a slice of end of the world life.
Carriers
12/20/2009
This is a small budget, independent film that really shoots for greatness and for the most part succeeds. This film also has the full endorsement of Stephen King if that means anything to you. Instead of relying on creature effects and blood and gore this movie is more about the survivors as they drive through the barren landscapes.
The movie has a very talented cast including Captain Kirk, I mean Chris Pine in a role he took before he did Star Trek. He plays Brian a kind of leader of the group. His girlfriend is Bobby played by Pieper Perabo (of Coyote Ugly fame). Gee where has she been? Danny is Brian’s younger brother played strongly by Lou Taylor Pucci. Danny was accepted at Harvard before this virus thing come to pass. He has also brought along his friend Kate. This movie really makes you think of what you would do in a prolonged pandemic, and what you are willing to do to survive. Not just surviving the virus, but each other as circumstance become increasingly dire. Lawlessness, violence, face masks and bleach, lots of bleach. Brian came up with three basic rules for them to live by. First, avoid infection. Second, disinfect everything. Third, the infected are already dead.
The real focus of the movie is in on the brothers and their childhood memories of their vacations to the ocean (east coast). This is where they are headed to wait out the madness. They encounter a father and his little girl with their SUV blocking the road. They need gas but his daughter is infected. The group tries to avoid them but damage their car in the process. Brian has a gun and forces the father to hand over their keys. They are kept quarantined in the backseat behind some plastic. The father was headed to see a doctor who says he can help his daughter. When they get there they find that the doctor has failed and all of the infected kids are now drinking a drugged Kool-Aid in a mass suicide. When Brian points the gun at him, and tells him to stop. The Doctor utters one of the movies best lines “Sometimes choosing life is just choosing a more painful way of death.” They all get back into the car, and the little girl says she has to go to the bathroom. When the father takes her out he knows that the others are going to take off without them. He takes his daughter and accepts his fate.
Further down the road they find a golf course and decide to blow of some steam. They hit balls into a vacant building, breaking most of the windows. That night a group of guys in haz-mat suits take them hostage. Upon inspection they find out that Bobby is infected. After escaping, they find refuge in an abandon gas station. This is where an extremely tough decision must me made. Does Brian let his infected girlfriend stay with them and jeopardize everyone else or do they leave her behind? The movie is built on these questions. I started to think if the plastic gloves and face masks they wear really make a difference in protecting them. Each character has a strong sense of denial, and shows them dealing with their situation in their own way. The SUV eventually runs out of gas, and this leads one of the most disturbingly shocking scenes in the movie. A car with two older women comes down the road; they have a Jesus fish hanging from the rearview. Danny tries to peacefully reason with them for some gas, when Brain comes out firing. He shoots the two women as they try to speed off.
Brian is then found out to be infected and has given up all hope. Danny and Kate quarantine him in the backseat and they finally make it to the coast. Now Danny has to make the tough decision. This movie might be considered a horror movie, but it is really so much more than that. It’s not a perfect movie, but it’s an angle of the virus movie genre has rarely been explored. Give this one a look.
not a horrible movie, but nothing to yet again nothing to make it deserve a good rating either…
Very interesting and good film anout how to survive at the end of the world. This is not a horror movie. It is more of a suspenseful drama. Very good acting and good character development. Was impressed the whole way through
Much like “Right at Your Door”, this movie is a character story, this time involving an epidemic affecting at least the population of the United States. While not entirely a horror story, I think there is enough going to tuck this into at least a subgenre of the Horror setting in the tradition of “Cabin Fever” and of course “Right at Your Door”.
I found the performances of the 4 main leads to be very well-done, although all of them were overshadowed by the superb performance delivered by Christopher Meloni playing the father of an infected daughter. This is but one of the many facets of morality that is examined in this film.
Stephen King has often been the master of exploring how everyday people react to catastrophes, which makes sense given King’s hearty endorsement of the film on EW.com this last October.
While not the best ever, I would certainly consider Carriers to be one of the best horror films that I saw in 2009, if not one of the best overall films I watched.
Pretty good. Chris Pine comes off as over acting in the first half of the film but by the 2nd half you start realizing hes fucked up in the head.
It’s a piece of crap.
This film showcases annoying characters, zero scares and offers nothing new to the post-apocalyptic theme…in fact the world they live in doesn’t seem as bad because of how lame it’s conveyed.
It reminded me of 28 Days Later but with a smaller budget.I liked it. Its worth checking out…..
Very boring didn’t like it at all.
Carriers in my opinion, is an overrated and uninteresting horror flick that is just like the rest. You have the douchebag character, you have the heroine, and then you pretty much have the dumb teenagers left. One of the biggest flaws of the movie is that the story went nowhere. Seriously, after the virus break in the opening thirty minutes, it’s almost completely disregarded. Here’s how Carriers plays out: a two minute brother montage, eighty minutes of character standing around, and two minutes of something actually happening. For those who say the acting is good, you have very low standards. How could you like absolutely anybody in this movie? For those saying it’s original, hello, 28 Days Later my friends. It is suspenseful, I will give it that and does look nice, but in terms of acting and characters this movie doesn’t deliver. 2 1/2 out of 5 skulls. Not bad, not good.
Throroughly boring and dissapointing. I believe with the story line they could of did a let more, yet it failed completley. It is such a waste of a half decent idea, the acting was average and i felt a sense of emtyness after watching it. As I felt it was going to go somewhere or something dramatic was going to happen and it didn’t. It just wasn’t interesting enough, and I would’nt reccommend it at all.
A virus that is never explained, has wiped out an amount of people that is never disclosed. Carriers is a post-apocalyptic film that doesn’t smack you in the face with details of the event. Most of the time when this formula is attempted, it’s a failure. In Carriers, it’s a great success.
One of my natural instincts when I find out a film I’m looking forward to has been slapped with a PG-13 rating is overwhelming disappointment. After-all, how is it possible to make a film that takes place in a post apocalyptic world, if the director is limited to the confines of this rating? Unless you read the box beforehand(Or read the text that I am typing) You’ll not notice the PG-13. Carriers does what it needs to do, and doesn’t pull any punches. It’s not an over-the-top gory zombie movie, with buckets of blood and guts, but that’s ok, that’s not the type of film it is. The virus doesn’t give people super human strength, nor does it give them an unquenchable thirst for human blood. This virus kills it’s host, like a real virus would. Part of what makes Carriers so powerful, is its believability. It plays with your emotions by presenting you with a possible scenario.
One of the things I liked most about Carriers, is that we’re just tossed in to this world, without precursor, and without warning. We’re not assaulted with a flashy opening montage to bring us up to speed. As far as we know, at the start of the film, these are normal people, on a normal road trip in the desert. It’s not until the first confrontation that we find out something is not right. An SUV, blocking the road, a man begging for gas, and his daughter in the car, with a bloody medical mask covering her nose and mouth. From this point on, Carriers is a powerful, and depressing ride. It’s not an action movie,all though there are shocking things that happens. It’s more of a character piece. The script does a good job at getting us to care about the characters, and what happens to them.
It depresses me that a film like Carriers has a short run in the festival circuit, and then gets dumped in direct-to-disc hell, yet a movie like “Legion” gets a hyped up theatrical release and marketing campaign. Even if you’re not a fan of indie cinema, don’t let this one slip past you. And like I said, don’t let the PG-13 fool you, Carriers kicked my preconceived notions in the face, and left me with a big, maniacal grin on my face. It’s just satisfying.
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didnt really have anything to do with zombies of any sort, but good story line. The little in the movie was just tooooooo sad =[
Chris Pine is definitely the strongest member of this cast. Cinematography and editing wasn’t too shabby.
A fine entry in the post-apocalyptic canon. A shame that this was buried for a couple years and shuffled in a handful of theatres last year because this deserves a wider viewing!
Bleak, depressing, strong acting…great stuff. Instead of relying on mere visceral reactions it’s a solid character study. I enjoyed the hell out of this one.
I really liked this. It pulled me in 100% and made me want to cry a multiple times. Chris Pine has crazy good charisma and I thought the acting in this was wonderful.
I like this movie, it wasn’t just another silly zombie infection flick; there is no real solution offered to the infection problem. No cure and no help. When I saw the trailer I thought this movie was a bit faster or scarier than it actually was, but the real fear is created by showing how the characters interact and starting to lose their humanity when their friends are getting infected.
A silent film that’s not the typical horror movie (how often do you see a horror film that almost makes you cry) but great anyway!
It was a breath of fresh air.
very boring movie,I was expecting something else.
Flamboyant and may i say ferociously cliche use of the “we have nothing to fear but ourselves” theme. This mixed with a droning artsy fartsy artistic horror delivered in the most heavy handed way possible. no surprises. no unique ideas. just another boring film back by money and a green light, but little to no originality at all.
Pretty much what I expected. I guess I can see why some think its boring if they aren’t huge fans of the post apocalyptic genre. But I am a huge fan and thought it was a pretty decent movie.
awesome movie this should be the way zombie films are made today:)
O.k outbreak film has good acting but a weak story. Nothing much happens in this film except for a few events that seem predictable. Not bad, but not great either.
Unoriginal is not a problem–the same theme can be beat to death over and over if done right. But, being highly unoriginal, boring, and uninvolving just makes for a garbage movie. The virus/outbreak theme is fine and the storyline is subdued due to budget and the way it was written, but no life at all equals zero interest in regards to Carriers. I bet the new James T. Kirk wishes he could have teleported out of this one.
A genuine surprise. Had little hope for this but ended up thoroughly enjoying it. Okay so it probably doesn’t play well with the “Saw”, “Hostel” crowd but this was entertaining, well thought out, and atmosperhically creepy. Not sure why people are calling this a zombie flick. It had nothing to do with zombies. It was a pandemic that killed off the population. If you’re looking for over the top gore and action then look the other way. But if you’re looking for something that is chilling in its portrayal of the end times, you could do a lot worse.
not bad.
the ugly.
Pretty decent, but nowhere near The Crazies, 28 Days and Weeks Later. Although, there is a sexy Chris Pine.
fucking horrible. I hope every copy in existence gets burned and we can all forget it was ever made. Not a single likeable character, a weak ass plot, and it was just stupid.
People need to stop making so many apocalyptic films. They’re seldom exciting; few of them are actually good. They all feel like the same bleak, slow-moving ride. Of course, there are some good films in this new wave of excessively hopeless films, and “Carriers”, the film I am reviewing, is not one of them.
I can’t say I’m surprised. What exactly did I expect from a film about an apocalyptic epidemic, which never sounded like it was going to deliver anything relatively new? Did I expect anything more than mildly entertaining? Perhaps I did. But I didn’t have high expectations for this movie, regardless. It’s a typical fight-for-survival film; no twists, no surprises, no reason to see it.
I am, in no way, saying that this is a bad movie. Plenty of effort went into it, and I admit that it is well-made on a technical level. But it lacks the ability to create true suspense, it’s never really scary, and when it wants to be dramatic, it lacks an emotional edge. It fails at many things and succeeds at others. This very reality makes it feel a tad uneven, and thus, I felt myself drifting away, possibly to a better movie; and even with these derivative apocalypse films, there are ones that are “better”.
A virus, with a source unknown, has spread across the world, killing everyone. The remaining survivors will kill to stay alive, and they will also steal, lie, and deceive. The film begins with four survivors, one of them which is played by Chris Pine (I only say this because you might actually know one of the actors, for a change). His character has a brother; and they both want to get to a “special place” from childhood, in the form of a beach, where they and their love interests can hide out for some time. Maybe the infection will die out.
Shortly after we get thrown into the middle of their grand adventure, the four pretty much take hostage a man and his daughter. The daughter is infected. The man is determined to keep her alive as long as he possibly can. On the journey, which takes up the entire film’s story, the lot runs into many things; more infected, empty homes, and even crazed survivalists.
Yeah, it’s not that exciting. It’s sometimes intriguing, and comes pretty darn close to being mildly fascinating, but you give the audience some; and in return, you must also take some (from your movie). The film feels either unfinished or just told with extreme mediocrity. I felt bored for, perhaps, more than half of the movie. The other half was indeed sort of engaging, but there were too many faults that were attached to this movie.
I wouldn’t tell you not to see the movie. It’s not bad; but it’s not good either. A decent movie, no doubt, but none-the-less one that failed as both a drama and a horror film. It’s not “bad drama” or “bad horror” that gives “Carriers” the edge of mediocrity that it dons; it’s the director…and the screen-writer. It is a beautifully shot, decently acted (aside from Pine, who is obnoxious and unlikeable) movie that didn’t inspire much sympathy from me. There was little to like just as there was little to detest, and in determining whether you should watch it, the choice is up to you. You are either drawn into its story of an emotionally charged road-trip, or you are not; and I was not.
“Carriers” certainly isn’t the worse film I’ve ever seen, nor is it the worst apocalyptic film I’ve seen, but their are just so many better films like this out there, that “Carriers” sort of remains obselete. What I did like about “Carriers” was the characters. All of them actually had a character, and so I did sort of care for them (or not in some cases) that was nice to see. It was also quite unpredictable and shocking at times which was also nice to see. But, when all is said and done “Carriers” is really a film about pointless encounters, where on reflection. Not a lot happens. “Carriers” seems to pick up new characters and just leave them at the side of the road (ilterally!) and it just makes you think. Why? There was also a lot of kids having fun in the apocalyptic nightmare which we saw just too much of. Don’t get me wrong their were some nice tense moments and some highlights of deep characterisation but these moments are few and far between. “28 Days Later” and “The Crazies” are much, much better examples of a post-apocalytip road movie/ Although it does help to make things more exciting when zombies are chasing after people!
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