carriers

CARRIERS


Well, I did it. I’m almost ashamed of myself. I gave in and bought another DVD player. It was only $30, it was my only “treat” from my tax return, it is tax deductible as a business expense. Yet…I feel as if I’m not allowed to bask in such middle class luxury. We’ve started our interesting journey down the other side of Hubbert’s bell curve and it is definitely not time to be wallowing in self indulgence. In my more honest moments I even question if I didn’t subconsciously push #4 away, knowing she was a liability ( guys-if you have a prepping on board wife, spoil her rotten and don’t let go ). Those moments quickly pass as even I don’t want to delve too deep in my own head. That’s some scary crap, dude. But, it is done and there isn’t much point going back. I’ll just go with the business expense angle since the first movie I watched was “Carriers”. It is post-apocalypse, even if clichéd. Definitely worth a buck at Redbox, but I wouldn’t rush out and buy the disc.

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I’m going to quickly spoil the movie for you, but you shouldn’t be watching it for the suspense. You should be watching it for examples of how not to do things as you are trying to survive a nation wide epidemic. Two young couples are roaring down the highway in a borrowed German auto. And not some gay ass hippie bastardized version of a Bug, but one of those high performance jobs that middle age executives with no hair and little peckers lay fifty grand down for to spoil their trophy wives with. Well, they didn’t need it anymore, anyway. Now, no one is trying to deny Big Brother ( the other guy is Little Brother ) his fun, speeding without a care. But he is drinking and they are assuming that there is no one else on the road. They aren’t assuming the worse, which in my book is the same as trying to kill yourself. Of course, these younguns nowadays-all about that devil music rock and roll and disrespecting their elders and such. They come across a SUV parked across the road and have to stop. A father wants gas, and they can see his daughter in the vehicle, wearing a blood stained medical mask. SHE’S INFECTED!!! Oh Good God!! They panic and scream around the SUV on to the shoulder and of course they go bumping and grinding a a short distance down the road they have to pull over, the oil pan scraped off or some other unfixable mechanical difficulty. So, they go back to the SUV and are going to hijack the guys pimpen ride. Out of four of them, they have one pistol ( which the idiot was using to riddle a billboard with back at their break down as if they had all the ammo in the world ).

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Okay, they are drinking. Assuming no one else is on the road. The only guy with a gun is the one drinking and not paying attention. Going back to a vehicle to steal it and they have no idea if the guy is armed. Worse yet, they don’t even have to be traveling at all. The two brothers get it in their head that they are going back to their idyllic childhood vacation spot. They are going to forage from the hotel and keep quarantined. But, they could do that anywhere! The hotel choice is only because they have fond memories of it. Idiots. They jack the guys ride, but he won’t leave the vehicle. He is on the way to get a rumored vaccine at an emergency center to cure his daughter. They steal his vehicle, but seal up the back so they don’t breath in the cooties ( throughout the movie the Federal Fabled Plastic Sheet And Duct Tape Cure is presented as a talisman ) of the other two. They are driving without masks on, as if the guy couldn’t just jerk down the plastic sheet and infect them all. They get to the emergency center, which shouldn’t surprise anyone was a fairy tale after all. As they are scouting it out ( with one gun between four adults, as if the liberals were so effective they had purged the whole land of the evil instruments of death. Good Christ on the cross, they didn’t come across any weapons while foraging for food, gas, or whatever? ), they leave behind the one female ( big brothers squeeze- little brothers “friend” isn’t putting out, bad reproductive protocol when most of the country is dead ) to watch the daughter through the plastic. And of course, daughter has a breathing problem and the fem helps her with her oxygen tank and gets infected. And hides it from everyone. Conniving slut! The rules at the start were simple. If you are infected, you are as good as dead. If you allow the infected near you, you are going to die too. It isn’t like this is a hard thing to understand. It doesn’t matter if you are a cute kid or an adorable old lady. If you are infected, stay the heck away. Dumb asses can’t follow a simple rule. Here’s another simple rule. If oil feeds you and oil runs out, your food runs out and you die ( nothing to do with the movie, but I had to throw it in ).

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They stop for the night at a resort. Boozing it up, not staying together for security. So of course, some militia dudes show up wondering why these jerks are contaminating their spot of paradise. They kick them out, but keep the girls. These guys know what it’s about-repopulation. Well, they’re not thinking that far, but it is a nice side effect. Unfortunately, they didn’t see “28 Day’s Later” so they don’t realize this is always a bad idea ( forced breeding stock ). Bad for half the populations morale ( it’s historic practice was to diversify the gene pool and avoid banjo playing morons, and the eventual reluctant acceptance was due to the acknowledgment that the alternative was starving after your village had burned down. It will soon be practiced again, but until the victims realize it is the lesser of two evils it is dangerous for the aggressors ). They are forced to strip down ( we don’t get to see any good stuff, being rated PG-13 ) and there it is- the disease rash. Soon after, she is kicked out of the car for being a carrier. Quickly after, Big Brother also gets infected. But he won’t voluntarily leave, keeping the one gun and the car keys. Little Brother, who up until now was one giant pussy, actually shoots him to get away. The movie finished up with some damn whining about how his life is going to suck now that he is alone. And we are left with the not very subtle morality lesson that Big Brother died because of his own inhumane rules. If you are infected, you can’t get close to others, regardless.

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The movie seems to be saying that since Big Bro was a jerk and killed little old ladies for gas and abandoned little girls to die of a disease, he was a big nasty person and his comeuppance was to die from the same disease. Typical liberal, cross thumping, moralizing BS. Humans are animals, and animals act in a manner that ensures the species survival, whether it is eating prey while it is still alive or killing off the offspring of another father. Not pretty, but effective. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for humans to rise above some of our barbaric practices. We can be decent, to a degree. We can choose to hide and flee instead of confront and conquer. But we should never think it is okay to deny our own survival for an altruistic motive. You must decide beforehand what the limits are, and stick with them. Last minute mercy gets you killed. Wavering gets you killed. Decide, then strictly enforce how you are going to act beforehand. Changing the rules midstream is deadly. Watching this movie is a good reminder of that. And it’s really not too bad of a flick anyway, overall.

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