Carriers

Friday 11th December 2009, 7:55AM GMT.

Occasionally, mankind needs to be taken down a peg or two.

Arrogant and conceited by nature, we labour under the illusion that we are masters of the third rock from the sun.

When we feel threatened by something, we invariably destroy it because homo sapiens are at the top of the food chain.

Of course, we’re not.

As swine flu and countless other viruses have reminded us with shocking clarity, we are just one tiny link in a delicate and complex ecosystem.

The things that we should fear the most are those we cannot see: millions of organisms, invisible to the human eye, which can subtly infiltrate the body and attack us from the inside, with potentially fatal consequences.

Siblings Alex and David Pastor write and direct this thriller set in the aftermath of a global pandemic which has devastated the human race.

The contagion spreads through blood and shuts down the body’s defences in a matter of days.

Carriers explores the moral dilemmas faced by four young survivors of the apocalypse.

‘Sometimes, choosing life is just choosing a more painful form of death,’ observes Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci), who leaves behind his dying parents and hits the road in a stolen car with older brother Brian (Chris Pine) and his girlfriend Bobby (Piper Perabo), plus school friend Kate (Emily VanCamp).

The quartet stick to the back roads in order to avoid contamination from the incurable virus, but they still encounter a stricken father, Frank (Christopher Meloni), and his infected daughter, Jodie (Kiernan Shipka).

‘We all agreed on the rules: when they’re sick, they’re dead.

There’s nothing we can do for them,’ hard-nosed Brian reminds his travelling companions, but fate has other ideas.

Their car splutters to a halt further down the road and they reluctantly grab supplies and return to commandeer Frank’s stalled SUV.

Taking pity on the man and his girl, Brian and co tape up the divide between the seats and the boot and consign the father and his infected child to the sealed rear.

The unlikely travelling companions continue their journey in search of military and medical assistance, but they only find misery.

Carriers adopts a low-key approach to its subject matter, drawing blood from the same vein as 28 Days Later – although here, the infected thankfully don’t feast on human flesh.

A lean running time prevents in-depth characterisation, but does ensure dramatic momentum.

Agonising choices are made without too many tears and tantrums, but the Pastors sustain tension well and they send a chill down the spine at a country club where masked marauders take the youngsters hostage.

Unexpected hairpins in the narrative are a pleasant surprise, proving for once that top billing doesn’t necessarily guarantee you make it alive to the end credits.