History Film / Carriers

* AHouseDivided: Some of the characters are more sentimental than others.

* ApocalypticLog: Only small pieces here and there, such as the gas station sign altered to read 'MIKE DEAD MEET ME AT DADS'.

* BigBrotherBully: Brian has shades of this, especially in the first scenes, but it’s AngerBornOfWorry.

* CrazySurvivalist: On the side of the protagonists, Brian. A whole group of them (who are following a similar set of rules to try to prevent contagion, [[spoiler:and [[{{Foreshadowing}} still had one member of their group infected]] regardless of how strictly they stuck to them]]) live in the golf resort.

* SpiritualAdaptation: Probably the closest you'll ever get to an adaptation of Stephen King's ''Night Surf''.

* PayPhone: One of Kate's quirks is checking every single payphone she comes across, trying to find one with a dialtone so that she can contact her parents. Bobby eventually mocks her for it, saying that her parents are obviously dead. Near the end, Kate looks at another phone ... [[DespairEventHorizon and doesn't bother checking]].

* AdultFear: Inverted, Kate is afraid for her parents and always trying to call her parents at the last place she heard their cruise ship had docked.

Carriers is a 2009 survival horror film about four people fleeing a viral epidemic in US. Two brothers, Brian and Danny, along with Brian's girlfriend Bobby and Danny's friend Kate, are heading to a place where they believe they can take shelter and wait for the viral pandemic to die out - a place called Turtle Beach, where Brian and Danny used to spend their holidays as children. [[FromBadToWorse Of course it all goes to hell from there.]]

* FoolishSiblingResponsibleSibling: PlayedWith. On the first glance, Brian is the fool, endangering everyone with his bravado, while Danny is the one who came up with the rules. However, Brian is also one that's willing to ''stick'' to them and makes all the tough decisions, while Danny is perfectly fine with coasting on Brian's back - something he's eventually called out up-front.

* IdiotBall: Most of the plot happens, because the characters keep passing it between each other. It undermines a lot of the genre deconstruction the script is clearly aiming for.

* CrazySurvivalist: On the side of the protagonists, Brian. A whole group of them ([[NotSoDifferent who are following a similar set of rules to try to prevent contagion]], [[spoiler:and [[{{Foreshadowing}} still had one member of their group infected]] regardless of how strictly they stuck to them]]) live in the golf resort.

* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Bobby’s concern for Jodie [[spoiler: gets her infected]]. Tom threatening his men not to keep the girls from leaving becomes this in retrospect, as [spoiler: due to Bobby’s infection]]. They wouldn’t have anyway, but his actions cause his men to mutiny and hold a gun on him, with it being unclear if they stand down after the group leaves.

* ShoutOut: Debatable on whether or not it's intentional, But this movie has ''A LOT'' of similarities too [[Creator/StephenKing Stephen King's]] short story ''[[Literature/NightShift Night Surf]]''

* DeconstructedCharacterArchetype: Brian is one for the "GenreSavvy survivalist-type who has a set of rules he follows religiously" in the vein of [[Film/{{Zombieland}} Columbus]]. [[spoiler:Turns out a CrazySurvivalist with a code [[PsychoPartyMember is still a crazy survivalist]].]]
* {{Deconstruction}}: Sure, many horror films are filled with young groups who die from being GenreBlind. But this movie goes to show just how hellish it would be to stick to unsympathetic survival rules no matter what the cost. Sure, you might survive - maybe - but would it even be worth it in the end? And could there have been situations that might have been avoided if they showed an ounce of compassion?
* DespairEventHorizon: All of the characters eventually, but most notably Frank when he finds out that there is no cure for the virus and the SafeZoneHopeSpot is a dead end, and Kate once she stops looking for a working phone.

* DueToTheDead: the shrine at the gas station.

* {{Hypocrite}}: in a sense, Brian was willing to leave [[spoiler: Frank, Jodie and Bobby]]. behind but [[spoiler: forces his brother to kill him rather than remain to die alone]].

* InsufferableGenius: possibly Tom with his insistence his rules had to have worked after one of his men is infected.
* {{Jerkass}}: Brian, full stop. Even the rest of the group tells him what an asshole he is, both jokingly and seriously, and he makes many situations worse by just being an asshole.

* JustifiedCriminal: They scavenge what they need from abandoned places and from the dead.

* LighterAndSofter: arguably to most apocalypse stories, as most deaths of major characters are off-screen or ambiguous and there’s no {{Gorn}}.

* MinimalistCast: There's only about twenty characters who appear, about a quarter of them without any dialogue, and more than half of them with less than five minutes of screen time.
* MoralEventHorizon: InUniverse, Danny thinks Brian crossed this when he reveals that [[spoiler:their parents weren't dead yet when they abandoned their home and set out on the road]], Brian had just told Danny [[spoiler:they were]] to get him to leave. Brian eventually tells him he crossed the Horizon much earlier, during his work digging graves for the virus victims back when society hadn't completely collapsed yet. Some of the bodies ''weren't dead yet'', but Brian buried them anyway, because he saw his supervisor pretending not to notice, so he pretended everything was fine too.
* NoBikesInTheApocalypse: The four main characters are perfectly willing to shoot innocent people for their gas, even though the world is almost entirely intact. The idea of finding bikes (or getting gas from abandoned cars) never comes up.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Bobby’s concern for Jodie [[spoiler: gets her infected]]. Tom threatening his men not to keep the girls from leaving becomes this in retrospect, as [spoiler: due to bobby’s infection]]. they wouldn’t’ have anyway, and his actions cause his men to mutiny hold a gun on him, with it being unclear if they stand down after the group leaves.
* NoodleIncident: the Baltimore vaccine, a previous failed HopeSpot.
* NotSoDifferent: The main characters and the armed survivors in the HAZMAT gear occupying the golf course. Both groups cling to the idea that survival is possible if you obey a rigid set of rules, and both fall to pieces when they realize it's impossible to completely insulate yourself against the virus, no matter what precautions you take.
* PapaWolf: Frank is a fairly non-violent version of this.

* PetTheDog: its undercut by the general harshness of the scene, but Brian not abandoning Bobby until they’re near a town where she can find a bed, and giving her rations and an advice on what to do is as close to this as he comes in one of his harder moments.
* PsychoPartyMember: [[spoiler:Brian. From the very first second he's on screen, he's the one who sticks to the rules the group has set to avoid infection the most religiously, and he has no problem threatening to hurt or kill anybody who gets in the way of the group surviving. He also left behind his own parents to die alone and lied to his brother that they were already dead because, in his opinion, there was nothing that could be done and staying would just risk them getting infected.]]
* ReasonableAuthorityFigure: despite his flaws, Tom is this to the country club group, being willing to let the main characters go.

* SafeZoneHopeSpot: It did exist at one point, and was part of a worldwide attempt at engineering a cure. Unfortunately, the best they managed was a serum that extended the lifespan of an infected for three more days, and eventually, everyone except one infected doctor and a handful of sick children are the only ones left...
** The golf resort is also this: completely isolated, empty, comfortable, with a kitchen full of food... [[spoiler:and then it turns out that it was not only taken already by a more heavily-armed group of [[CrazySurvivalist Crazy Survivalists]], but one of the members of this group got infected somehow regardless of their own strict anti-infection protocols (while he was keeping guard of the resort, even) and died on the resort's pool, turning only-God-knows-how-much of the resort into a "poisoned well".]]
** Turtle Beach zigzags this, seeming to be safe for the characters, but not as happy as most successful safe-zones.

* TooDumbToLive: The way [[spoiler:Bobby]] was infected - [[spoiler:she broke their makeshift quarantine to help an infected girl who was choking on her own blood.]] Arguably all of them [[spoiler:they all break containment at multiple points and make endlessly ill-thought-out choices.]]
* UncertainDoom: Just about everyone last seen infected but alive, [[spoiler: and Tom, after his men mutiny]].
* UnluckilyLucky: [[spoiler: Bobby’s infection]] probably saved the brothers from being shot by Tom's men and [[spoiler: Kate]]. from being kept as a sex slave.

* ThePlague

* WhatTheHellHero: Brian to Bobby upon [[spoiler: discovering she’s infected]]. Brian himself gets quite a few from other characters.

* AmbiguousSituation: Was it [[spoiler: Bobby]] who infected [[spoiler: Brian with their kiss]], or the dog eating infected flesh that bit his leg?

* AmbiguousSituation: Was it [[spoiler: Bobby]] who infected [[spoiler: Brian with their kiss]], or the dog eating infected flesh that bit his leg.

* BabiesMakeEverythingBetter: Invoked, when Brain reveals that Bobby had wanted to have a kid with him [[spoiler: after reflecting on leaving her behind]].

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler:Danny and Kate survive and arrive at Turtle Beach, but all Danny can do is think about his childhood there with his now dead brother, and that he will always be alone.]]

* DoesThisRemindYouOfAnything: Brian's story about him having buried victims of the Virus alive are very reminiscent of some accounts of the Black Death.

* HairOfGoldHeartOfGold: downplayed but the three blonde group members all have more PetTheDog moments than Brian.