The Carrier

Was drawn into seeing 'The Carrier', with a cool poster/cover, a promising trailer, an intriguing premise and as someone with a general appreciation for the genre it fits under. That it was low-budget, which from frequent personal experience is rarely a good sign due to that there are so many poor ones out there, made me though apprehensive.

It is sadly however yet another film seen recently, hence some reiteration because the exact same strengths and flaws present in those films are here, that to me was incredibly disappointing considering its potential which it doesn't do anywhere near enough with. 'The Carrier' is weak with not much point to it, with so many huge flaws and doesn't do enough with its potential, which was hardly small. There is very little to recommend in 'The Carrier'.

Lets start with the positives. Some of the acting is okay considering what was given to them. The production values had atmosphere and didn't look too cheap.

'The Carrier' also starts off reasonably promisingly, it does intrigue and it does have creepiness.

Going on to the negatives, the story does feel over-stretched and some of it comes over as vague and under-explained in the last third where the film especially became duller, more predictable, more senseless and less unsettled and never gaining momentum. All the characters are too sketchy and with nowhere near enough to make one want to endear to them. Their annoying and illogical decision making and behaviours frustrates. The chemistry lacks character or punch.

Making the film feel bland and forgettable with not enough heart put into it. The sound quality is obvious and utilised cheaply (being too loud in the build ups and people's reactions) and some of the acting seemed unsure. The effects can be ropy.

Dialogue can be stilted and rambling while the pace and film lacks tightness after such an intriguing start and doesn't recover. Found too many of the supposedly shocking moments not surprising and very bland and the atmosphere dreary, due to the excessive obviousness, a lot of idiotic and vague moments and explanations and the lack of tension and suspense. Thrills are none, thanks to stodginess and excessive over-familiarity, and found myself never invested in the drama, which tended to be overacted and statically directed.

A lot of 'The Carrier' has underdeveloped plot elements and often nonsensical and confusing character motivations, while too many of the things to make you shocked are far from creative or unsettling.

Everything is unimaginative and are more odd than scary, completely failing to show any sense of dread. The thriller elements fail to thrill and are very predictable and the drama is overwrought. Some badly sagging momentum too and a lot of weirdness. The direction is leaden, got the sense their heart was not in it.

Overall, weak but not without redeeming merits. 3/10 Bethany Cox

This sounded mildly intriguing so we gave it a whirl. How I wish we hadn't. It started off OK, but quickly revealed itself as a very cheaply-made straight-to-video formula horror/thriller. It looked as though it may have been a pilot for a TV serial that never got made (can't think why). Most of the characters are either useless and unreliable or just plain psychos, like 'Eric' who goes around wrecking the group's chances of survival. According to the end credits, it was filmed 'around the back of B&Q in Basildon' or something like that. Avoid.

The world is going to hell in an antibiotic-resistant- plague powered hand cart. Soldiers are shooting people dead on the street and the suburban houses of the infected are set a blaze.

A bunch of people manage to get aboard a plane and make a dash for it. Locked in to a confided environment, with the potential of infection aboard and the world burning below, this is dynamite.

Production, acting and writing are sufficient to carry all this off and is very tense and moving in places.

Happy days?

No. The problem with this film is the plot. To unfold the way it does the characters have to make one shockingly ill-thought out choice after another. You know in horror films when the guy goes down in to the cellar on his own just to find out what that scrapping noise is? Well every single character in this film does this, about every six minutes.

This sounds nit-picky for what is essentially a sci-fi film; but it is so annoying it distracts from the film.

"Hey Gary I'm just going to pop out and have a chat with this guy who has been trying to kill us for the last twenty minutes."

"Right-oh Fred, want to take this gun with you mate?"

"No I'm sure it will be fine. Just sneeze into my mouth for good luck"

The ending reaches an appropriate climax but I was left wondering what was the point in it all.

Good acting and production hung on a distorted framework.

The idea had potential, but I think it just missed for me. The pandemic has taught us that people WOULD in fact be idiots, and try and jump on a plane despite the risk to others. So the very idea of this film is a solid one.

The problem is the characters were bland and one dimensional, and I don't feel the film had any real focus, or real ending. Like there were some very good ideas going on, but they needed developing more, and the film needed more focus on deciding what it wanted to be. It started off very reasonable, but then just went flat.

The other issue I had is the acting was a little all over the place. Some points seemed overacted, where as other actors felt flat/stiff. I wish the film had more going for it, because the concept is a good one.

It was so annoying that everyone was acting stupid, I wanted to punch my screen watching this!