When the balloon goes up: Horror and the post-apocalypse – 2
Synfidie at Apocalyptic Thoughts mentioned Outbreak (1995) on Twitter today, which reminded me of Carriers (2009; link to full movie online further down page) – described succintly by producer Ray Angelic as “a character-driven post-pandemic road-trip thriller…” Written and directed by Spanish brothers Àlex Pastor and David Pastor, this downbeat but intelligently crafted movie was filmed in New Mexico in 2006 but then shelved and shunted around until its eventual cinematic release in September 2009, rapidly followed by DVD release in December the same year.
Although overall the critics gave it positive reviews it didn’t go down as well with the public – possibly because the word “zombie” kept cropping up around it so often: the audience went to see a film about a zombie apocalypse and instead found themselves watching a movie about moral and ethical dilemmas. As Empire magazine‘s Simon Crook put it: “If you’ve come for visceral zombie thrills, you’re in the wrong film. While there are dashes of body horror (man-eating dogs, blood-gurgling plague kids), Carriers offers the kind of scares the [film censor] would class as “mild apocalyptic peril”. In its place is a stealthier suspense, bedded in the stark dilemmas of survival and an altogether weightier issue: the death of trust.”
Mayer Nissim at Digital Spy:
A gritty low-budget mix of some of the best bits from Mad Max, Outbreak and Night Of The Living Dead, it ticks all the boxes in a refreshingly snappy 84 minute runtime. We start off with Brian (Chris Pine), his brother Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci) and their respective girlfriends Bobby (Piper Perabo) and Kate (Emily VanCamp) in a stolen Mercedes daubed with “Road Warrior” (that Max connection). They’re traversing the freeways with the goal of reaching the boys’ old holiday home, but outside their vehicle the rest of the world has effectively fallen apart. Pretty much everyone has succumbed to an unnamed virus whose victims die painfully slowly – and not pleasantly either. Given their experiences, they’ve elected to stick to three key rules: avoid the infected; disinfect everything; and if you’re showing signs of infection, you’re already dead.
Dangers on the route (from the infected and uninfected, the well and malintentioned) mean that there’s little time for thought as our protagonists edge ever closer to their intended destination. Afterwards though, you ponder on the futility of their journey – even if they are to stay alive – and just how you might cope in similar circumstances. The resonance of deadly epidemic in a post-AIDS/SARS/H5N1 and H1N1-scare landscape is obvious, but like the best of its influences, the real subject matter here is people and their relationships. The movie succeeds in that age-old trick of pushing things to the very edge to find out just how thick blood and water really are.
None of this will be new to anyone who has seen any other post-apocalyptic disaster flick, zombie thriller or road movie, but Carriers succeeds by keeping things simple and never going over-the-top with either the acting or exposition. Best of all, it boasts a needfully nasty streak throughout. Hazy moral lines are successively crossed, but the truth of the dialogue and straightforward performances mean that every incident retains a hefty emotional punch.
Probably for all the reasons that most other horror fans don’t like this movie, I actually think it is one of the better depictions of the post-apocalypse. As David Pastor said: “It’s not really about the pandemic, but more about civilization collapsing, and how a small group of people reflect that crumbling of society.” Like any good thriller, the film puts people under extreme emotional duress and asks how they will subsequently treat one another. Pine said in an interview with Fangoria: “The question becomes whether it is better to just survive, or to be with – and die with – your loved ones…”
This is perhaps the most fundamental question at the heart of the post-apocalyptic narrative.
Related articles
- When the balloon goes up: Horror and the post-apocalypse (tool8.wordpress.com)
- A missile silo retreat from the coming Zombie Apocalypse – only $1.7 M [Video] (winextra.com)
- Not Just Another Apocalypse: The Fades (pinkbananaworld.com)
gabriel
Teddy Hernandez
Going to watch this now, I’ll let you know what I think. Didn’t realize it has Chris Pine in it and Piper Perabo (girl crush time!).
Held off from commenting until I had seen it. Having now watched Carriers, it’s disappointing so many horror fans were dismissive / hated it. Not that it was a brilliant film, but it was a mostly well-executed, well-paced exposition of theme instead of gratuitous horror-violence. Oh, and it had characterisation and believability too…
*cough*unlikethewalkingdead*cough*
It frustrates me when a film like this is associated with ‘zombie film’ when clearly it’s not part of that sub-genre’s tome. I guess that happens when a plot device – the disease – has similarities to the (zombie) zeitgeist, ergo, it becomes associated with that zeitgeist (by dopes). Having said that, what it does do – like the best of zombie films – is use said extraordinary plot device to elaborate on what makes humanity so fragile; thus, if any comparison to zombie films were to be done by genre fans, it should have been in this context (and such comparison would be favourable).
It’s certainly a good and under-rated film with its weaknesses counterbalanced by effort and sincerity.
LOL at the walking dead comment..i’m guessing you are partially talking about the god awful pacing for it.
I watched the film last night and I rather enjoyed it. This is the type of “apocalypse” film I like to watch as it isn’t all blood, gore, and scare tactics. The “scare” in a film or a setting like this is not the disease, but the people involved..the “what if’s” of something like this occurring. The “wow, would I be able to make this decision” or “would I be able to handle this?”
I find that if I focus/imagine on a world that there are few survivors and having to get on with my life that it fills me with immense dread. This movie didn’t give me the “dread” feeling, but it most certainly makes you think “ahhhhh this really sucks.”
I think..for the people in this film…that they were forced to make decisions to survive physically, but they aren’t surviving mentally. This is demonstrated by that one chicks phone obsession and when she finally stops picking it up. Or in the end when the one brother has his monologue. (don’t want to spoiler it completely).
The movie had some fantastic quotes in it, none of which I’m remembering at this precise second.
End note: Not all end of world movies need to be about freaking zombies.
End note….. amen!
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