company: Paramount Vantage
year: 2009
runtime: 84′
country: United States
directors: Alex and David Pastor
cast: Lou Taylor Pucci, Chris Pine,
Piper Parabo, Emily VanCamp
writers: Alex and David Pastor
cinematographer: Benoit Debie
Visit the awful official movie site
Out in limited release in the USA
The world is devastated by an unstoppable plague that leaves everyone who contracts it dead in its wake. Four young people travel the backroads of the southwest, headed for the safety of an isolated beach motel on the Gulf Coast while following a five-step plan to avoid infection.
Early advertising for CARRIERS, currently in a disparagingly limited release, passed it off as a topical shocker about a lethal outbreak of the avian flu while the latest trailer makes it appear to be just another zombie-pocalypse. “The only thing more dangerous than the disease . . . are the carriers,” it says before a seemingly dead man’s eyes burst open. It’s a pity that Paramount Vantage couldn’t think of a more effective [and honest] manner of advertising the film, as CARRIERS has nothing to do with either the avian flu or roving hordes of the undead.
The truth of the matter, and the reason I find its manner of release so appalling, is this: CARRIERS is quite simply one of the best films about the death of man ever produced – a stripped down and intelligent character driven apocalypse picture that creates a palpable sense of existential dread without resorting to gross-out violence or cheap thrills.
The Pastor brothers, a duo of Spanish film-makers who pull double duty here as both writers and directors, play their story as a thematic homage to classic end-of-the-world vehicles of the past and wisely avoid the contrivances of the action-packed and empty headed post-MAD MAX thrill fests that now dominate the genre. The focus of CARRIERS is purely on its main characters, all of whom the Pastor brothers take the time to lend considerable depth and none of whom fall into the teenaged monster-bait stereotype.
CARRIERS eschews backstory about the plague itself, leaving its menace enigmatic and negating the need for any kind of bloated scientific discourse on the subject. What is shown of its aftermath is enough to convince of its destructive potential – emptied city streets, abandoned CDC encampments, and waste disposal trucks piled high with body bags. As dangerous as the plague itself are those who are clinging to survival, as evidenced by the sight of a murdered man crucified on a farmhouse windmill with a sign reading “Chincs brought it” draped across his chest.
In-fighting among clusters of humanity has provided the primary dramatic momentum for apocalypse films since Arch Obelers FIVE from 1951, with man’s inability to deal with himself often proving far more deadly than the overriding threat of radiation sickness, flesh-eating zombies, etc. CARRIERS takes the opportunity to turn that convention on its head in one scene, in which disagreement among a band of plastic-wrapped gun-toting survivalists allows for the escape of our main cast. Such quarrelling will surely mean the end of that group, but our heroes will live to drive another day.
The tension among our protagonists results from their own humanity. Allowing a father [Christopher Meloni in a big supporting role] and his infected daughter to travel with them in the plastic and duct-tape sealed back of an SUV invites the virus into the presumed safety of their group. It predictably spreads, giving the uninfected no choice but to make necessary [but no less horrific for their necessity] decisions – to leave sick friends to die on the side of the road, and worse. When the final survivors reach the beach they are despondent, their humanity crushed by what came before, and hardly in a position to rebuild the foundations of civilization. They wander the ruins, remembering what was while coming to terms with what is – waiting for the ever-dimmer flame of mankind to snuff itself out.
The Pastor brothers, in an interview with Twitchfilm, provided some insight into their inspirations here – John Wyndham’s superior disaster novel THE DAY OF THE TRIFFIDS and Geoff Murphy’s inconsistent but undeniably haunting THE QUIET EARTH. Their film happily reminds of the best moments from scores of its apocalyptic predecessors [THE LAST MAN ON EARTH, THE WORLD THE FLESH AND THE DEVIL, DAWN OF THE DEAD and more] while managing to far surpass many of them in its overall effectiveness. To take a premise that’s been part of cinema DNA for the better part of the past 80 years and mold such a fresh, effective dramatic thriller from it is no small task, but the Pastor brothers have done so with style to spare. Keep an eye on these guys – if there’s any fairness in the world then they’re going places.
Whether or not mainstream audiences will be willing to embrace a quiet and deliciously restrained end of the world effort with under-acheiving big-budget trash like 2012 on its way is something we may never know, as Paramount has all but doomed the film’s theatrical life through its underfunded and blatantly fallacious advertising campaign. I expect that most of you reading this will have to wait until CARRIERS makes its way to home video to see it at all. My advice is to check your local theater listings and make a point to catch it that way, if possible [it's playing matinees at Block E Kerasotes here in Minneapolis through next Thursday]. The Pastor brothers have crafted something special here, and it deserves to be seen.
