Carriers

Carriers stars Chris Pine and Piper Perabo as two of a group of four twenty somethings traveling back roads in post horrible plague America.  But this is not your typical post plague movie.  That is, there are no zombies.  Not one, despite what the trailer would have you believe.  I remember reading about the movie on screenrant before it came out and they remarked on how the trailer didn't seem very sure if it was a standard zombie flick or character driven piece about what people do in survival situations.  The worry was that the movie would be just as unsure of its direction.  I can tell you this, movie is very sure of its direction.  The studio however seemed unsure of how they wanted to sell it.  So unsure in fact that even though it was done first, it didn't come out until after the Pine starring Star Trek proved to be a resounding success.
Back to the movie.  Like I said, no zombies, so this is a look at how four people deal with survival after most of the country is dead.  There aren't really any big surprises in the movie.  The characters basically look out for themselves and anyone else is just a potential source of gas and other supplies.  What is new in this movie is that there is no big humanizing moment, in fact they get more ruthless as the movie progresses.  They start out by stranding a guy and is infected daughter, after stealing their truck.  The main character (Pine) then abandons his girlfriend (Perabo) in the middle of nowhere after she gets infected (which happened when she was trying to help the little girl.  After that, Pine's character just flat out kills two completely innocent women to stea their gas.  From there, Pine is infected and the other couple, that is, his brother and another girl plan on stranding him.  But things get complicated and Pine gets killed by his little brother.
This leads to another thing I liked about the movie.  It shows how one's decisions establish certain dispositions, or more bluntly, how being a little bastard make it easier to become a bigger bastard down the road.  Our decisions matter and can have major consequences for ourselves and others down the road.  There is also a narration at the end where the little brother realizes that while he have survived, he knows that now he will always be alone, never able to trust or love another person.
The movie also got me thinking about the whole survival movie genre in general.  Normally, the people in them are ruthless and if not ready to just screw over every one they find at least aren't exactly eager to help.  Why is that?  Well, I guess I know why.  But why not a movie where the main characters are motivated by a desire help others?  Why not have a zompocalypse where people are trying to recruit fellow survivors and try to cure the virus or what that is the cause of it?  Basically, what if the primary group of survivors were devout Christians?  You could still have all the typical conversation about what should be done with the infected person, the tension between survival and keeping our humanity, etc.  The only difference would be that the nice guy wins the argrument.    The only movie I can think of like that, even a little is I am Legend where Smith's character is rescued from certain death by Alice Braga's character and he in turn sacrifices himself so that she can survive with the cure that he developed.  And then she makes it to a settlement which features a Church in the center.  But this is the very end of the movie and is very different than the book it is based on.
Anyway, just some thoughts.