Vírus

In a world devastated by an outbreak, Brian (Chris Pine), his girlfriend Bobby (Piper Perabo), his brother Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci) and their friend Kate (Emily VanCamp) are heading to a beach where the brothers spent vacations in their childhood, and they expect to be a sanctuary. When their car breaks on the road in the desert, they negotiate with a man called Frank (Christopher Meloni) that run out of gas while driving his infected daughter Jodie (Kiernan Shipka) to the hospital and they travel together. Along the journey, Bobby tries to help Jodie but is contaminated by her blood; however, she does not disclose the truth to Brian and her friends. Further, they lose their humanity in their fight for survive.

"Carriers" is another "deadly virus genre" movie that uses the same premise of dozens of films and maybe the greatest difference is that there are no zombies in the plot. The beginning of the dramatic and hopeless story is not well-developed and does not explain the origins of the outbreak. The plot is indeed about the lost of humanity by the survivors, and in this regard the film is bitter and gives absolutely no hope to the human race. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Virus" ("Virus")

Note: On 11 Dec 2020, I saw this film again. In times of COVID-19 pandemic, this film is scarier and darker. The origin of the pandemic is apparently in China based on the scene of the man died on the road through the desert. My note is seven.

I just left the screening of "Carriers". It was the opening Movie on this years Fantasy Film Fest. At least here in Munich. Well, my first reaction to this film was something like "Wow... this where long 90 Minutes". Most of the other crowd thought the same and their comments where quite similar to mine. Meaning: Good, but a bit slow.

This Movie needs a little tightening to speed it up a little bit. It does a lot of things right! The characters are worked out properly, the camera-work is top notch and the acting is very good. But sometimes there are scenes, that last too long. You know where the Directors want to go, you know how the scene will play out in the end, but it still goes on and on and on... So again: a little trimming would do the film good!

Well, and then there is this whole "Wrong Marketing"-Thing. At least here in Germany they try to sell this movie as a Horror-Movie. That's just wrong. Sure, there are the classic Horror-Elements, but overall "Carriers" is a strong, heavy Drama. There is virtually NO Action and even less gore in it. Instead there are long dialogs, dramatic events and more dialogs. That's fine with me, but it makes the movie hard to find it's audience. The GoreHounds will be disappointed by the lack of blood and guts and the Drama-Fans will be pushed away by the apocalyptic Elements...

So. Once again: "Carriers" has great potential but is a little bit to slow and to heavy on the drama to pass as a great movie.

It's no zombie flick. Unlike most virus flicks, 'Carrier' focuses on the emotional and psychological aspect of the survivors especially their struggle when they have to leave one of their own behind (or even commit the act of taking their life) in order to ensure their own survival and the despair of the soon-to-be-deceased after they have been abandoned on their own to die a slow painful death. Yes, there are a few jump sequences and a few clichéd 'horror' scenes where the infected scare and chase the survivors. In my opinion, most of these sequences weren't even necessary. Yet, the writing is mostly good and the atmosphere is well-created (even though nothing outstanding). The cinematography too is adequate. The two female leads lacked character development. Even so, Piper Perabo manages to somewhat rise above, especially in her final sequences and Emily VanCamp fails to impress. Chris Pine is quite irritating while Lou Taylor Pucci carries the movie. Christopher Meloni does a brilliant job in a supporting role. 'Carriers' is quite a change from the traditional zombie flick and even though it doesn't match up to 'The Road', it's a decent effort.

The movie revolves around the fate of 4 unpleasant millennials mid-way through an apocalypse caused by a gruesome virus. They've instituted rules that are meant to keep them from getting infected. Some of these seem rational, like "disinfect stuff touched by decaying people."

Too bad they didn't include rules like "let's avoid acting like the cast of Jackass." I don't want to spoil their clever pranks, so I'll compare them to the geniuses who tried to drive blindfolded using only the GPS, like Sandra Bullock in Birdbox.

There are predictable lessons about karma, a few mild jump scares, and plenty of times to take bathroom breaks.

There are a lot of interesting things in this movie that will seem quite prescient after the festivities of the last year.

But it goes south so very quickly because the characters keep doing shockingly stupid things. "Hey, I'll just poke around in this murky swimming pool."

There's absolutely zero chance these four people would have survived this long.