#7-Carriers (2009)

Carriers

Never heard of this movie? It's not foregin. It's not idependent. It was however realesed straight to DVD, despite my over-zealous excitment for it after I saw the trailer. It takes the simple, classic premise of some sort of an airborne toxin floating through the air, killing people. BUT, it has changed it up, because these people don't turn into zombies. It's an interesting premise, but I'll get into that later. This movie was a semi-big budget horror film, with some semi-known TV stars taking up the lead roles. The movie was produced by the subsideray of Paramount, Paramount Vantage, the company never made any plans to realese it in theatres, it kept on getting pushed back, and pushed back, until they finally just realesed it straight-to-DVD, where I rented, I'm actually really glad I didn't see it in theatres, because it would have cost me $4 more to see it. Yeah, it wasn't too good.

Carriers tells the story of four friends traveling around the country together, after an airborne toxin has let all hell break loose. We have two brothers, the older brothers girlfriend, and the younger brothers crush. Along the way, we learn that there are more people who have survived the infection. Some of them are just trying to survive, others are looters, going around looking for anything they can. Carriers is an infected movie. Not a zombie movie. The people do not turn into zombies after dying of the contagin, they simply die, and then the disease spreads along. While its not really that original, it was a nice twist on the classic zombie tale, well, not zombie, but you know.

This is where Carriers succeeds. In an interesting, somewhat original story. That is almost the only place where it succeeds. While the idea may be interesting, that does not mean that it was pulled off well. It was almost completely ruined by mostly annoying characters, and anti-climatic, cliche, and overused situations and scenarios. While most of the characters are annoying, and un-original, some are new, and inventive, so I also give the film points for that.

The acting here is shallow and inconsistent. Annoying characters and bad actors are a terrible combination, especially in a movie like this. Usually, I'm less inclined to complain about the acting in a horror movie, compared to a drama, where characters carry the story. But this film was just plain old bad. The group of characters we follow for most of the film consits of Lou Taylor Pucci, Chris Pine(of Star Trek, who is one of the better roles), Piper Perabo, and Emily Van Camp. The only saving grace is a small supporting role by Christopher Meloni, who in my opinion, is always pretty decent.

"Really, it's only a bruise."

Aside from the main aspect of Carriers, its a very nice film from a techincal standpoing. The movie doesn't use too many special effects, and still looks very nice. Upon first seeing the desert wasteland, it's a lot like watching 28 Days Later, and seeing the rundown London. The cinematography, lighting, and music were nice enough for a movie in general, but for a horror film really stood out.

This film was written and directed by Alex and David Pastor, while I can't say that I have full trust in their abilities, the next time they realese a movie, I will definatly RENT it, as I feel that they really have potential, that wasn't on display here. The direction was decent, and it felt very smooth, not like there was two seperate minds directing. The writing wasn't too good however, the dialouge was average, and you already know how I felt about the rest of it.

Carriers is an interesting little horror film, with a inticing, yet, sadly, not very good story, with annoying characters and bad acting. However, a few original characters and some interesting techiniques behind the camera make it stay ahead above most, but that cannot entirely save this film. For as much as I was looking forward to Carriers, I was dissapointed.

I Give Carriers A:
2/5