What is the worst apocalypse for humanity? (The Results)

A few months back I posted my Top 10 Worst Apocalypses. My #1 choice of the most horrible apocalypse to inflict humanity was a zombie armageddon. It looks like you all agreed as out of 199 votes, a zombie apocalypse won convincingly with 25% of the vote. Coming in second was Virus (16%) and Nuclear at (14%).

From the looks of it nobody is scared of vampires (cuz they twinkle?) and robots. I was sure robots would be a little higher as I got them at #4 on my list. And nobody is really scared of alien slavemasters either.

I got some interesting comments as well you can check out here. If we run out of oil, you'll be begging for some zombies instead.

Thanks to everybody who voted. New poll will be coming soon!

The 10 Worst Apocalypses

With the Walking Dead just kicking ass on AMC, I was originally going to post a list of things that logically would kinda suck during a zombie apocalypse. One of the main things would be all the freakin flies and maggots that would infest the dead. Shouldn't we see flies buzzing around each zombie? Also, a few weeks into decomposition, its maggot city right?

But I digress.

It's no shock that a zombie apocalypse to me is the king of apocalypses. I mean the dead walking around is pretty much fucked up as you can get. Limited human survivors and a constantly growing army looking to eat your brains guarantees an end to the world. But what other types of apocalypses would suck?

Here is my list. I hope you include your own in the comments. I'm also putting up a poll in the right nav bar so you can vote on which you think is the WORST OF THE APOCALYPSES.

Now head to your fallout shelter ASAP!

10.) Water Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: Think Waterworld. Say because of global warming the ice caps start to melt and we all gotta live on boats. I'm not good with boats and get sea sick pretty easily. Shit, I don't want to grow gills either.

9.) Religious Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: You'd think I'd say it would be God vs the Devil or angels vs demons. But that's not the kind I'm talking about. It would kinda suck if the world collapsed into a collective war over religious ideology. Oh shit you mean that's happening now? Fuck.

8.) Asteroid Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: You know where I'm heading. Yup Armageddon and Deep Impact territory. The impact of the asteroids would eradicate a large population but the fallout would cause us to probably all live underground. We probably wouldn't have Internet either.

7.) Natural Resources Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: On Discovery Channel they once theorized if we ran out of oil all hell would break loose. Wars would breakout all over the world as each country horded gas and oil. We really do need all the stuff we dig out of the Earth and it would be madness if gas cost $100 a gallon.

6.) Vampire Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: I recently read Guillermo Del Toro's The Strain and he really details a widespread pandemic if vampires elected to go all vampy and not be all secretive about their intent. Daybreakers illustrates that we could all be infected pretty fast. A vampire world with consist of no sunlight and an overwhelming thirst for blood. But the superhuman strength would be fuckin awesome.

5.) Virus Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: An airborne virus spreading across the planet is the most frightening and MOST REALISTIC thing that could happen. We've had our scares with Ebola and Mad Cow. Say we get a virus like in Stephen King's The Stand, we'd all be fucked. Quarantine zones, wearing masks and hazmat suits. Say the virus turned us into flesh eating mutants? Who would I get to play XBox Kinect with?

4.) Robotic Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: Skynet goes self aware. Your jacked into the Matrix (which doesn't sound so bad). A war between the machines is gonna suck. When your Wii starts attacking you, all hope is loss.


3.) Nuclear Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: It's The Road and it's depressing as hell. Sure Mad Max may look fun with their dune buggies and Road Warrior shoulder pads but the 100 or so years in the fallout shelter would kinda suck.

2.) Alien Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: We're not alone. But after they destroy all the major cities and start a human genocide you'd hope we would be. A virus from a Mac ain't gonna work dude. Being slaves to an alien race is pretty much the worst case scenario. No way we can beat their technology if they're using fuckin force fields. Plus being destroyed by aliens would be demoralizing as you'd think humanity could do it better ourselves.

1.) Zombie Apocalypse

the jaded viewer says: Like I said, a post apocalyptic zombie world would just plain the best worst. Zombie corpses, flies and maggots. All major cities uninhabitable. I mean the walking dead would stink like crazy.

Plus I'm not good with firearms. Maybe I should brush up via Call of Duty.

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Well that's my list. What do you think is the worst of the apocalypses? Go ahead and vote in the poll to the right and if you got your own list, share it below.

And if I flipped the question around, what would be the best apocalypse that you think we'd all be able to survive? I'm thinking vampires (we got daylight!).

Share your thoughts!

Carriers (Review)

Carriers

Carriers (2009)

Directed by Alex and David Pastor

It's New Year's Eve! What better way to end 2009 with a post apocalyptic movie, right? So with my last post of 2009, I bring you my review of Carriers.

Carriers is sorta a uber depressing version of Zombieland without the funny and kinetic moving zombies. There are 4 people (2 dudes and 2 dudettes), they have their own "rules" and they are traveling the US of A to get to a happy place. See what I mean? However, in Carriers it's more realistic and there is no search for twinkies. Also, the "infected" don't want to eat your flesh.

Other than that, it's the same formula. But Paramount Vintage ignored this flick giving it a small release this year whereas Zombieland went global. Carriers is a solid flick and for 90 minutes beats down the every man for himself theme down your throat. Survival of the fittest is the motto in this post apocalyptic world. And because they stayed true to this, it makes quite an effective flick.

But you know what I realized after watching this? If there is EVER a zombie epidemic or a national infection that can't be quarantined, the United States of America is NOT the country you want to be in. We turn into dog eat dog killers and only think of ourselves. Does this happen in the Bahamas?


Boring Plot-O-Matic

Four kids are trying to outrun the end of the world – and each other. No one is safe from the viral pandemic threatening to wipe out the human race. The four friends speed across the Southwestern U.S. to reach a place of safety while facing moral decisions no human should ever be forced to face. They discover that their greatest enemy is not the microbe attacking humanity, but the darkness within themselves.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

So Carriers has rules like Zombieland (5 total compared to the 33 in Z) Let's go through them shall we?

1.) Avoid populated areas at all cost.

The virus in Carriers is never explained and that's a good thing. We get thrown into the movie right smack in the middle as they travel the back roads. All we know when we start our journey with these 4 musketeers is that a virus has wiped out most of humanity and they need the essentials to survive: water, food, bleach and especially gas.

Carriers uses the open country setting well and shows us daytime which makes a infection movie even creepier. I've always thought zombie or virus movies should show us more daytime scenes. Makes us feel we're not safe at all.

2.) If you come into contact with other people, assume they have it.

OK let's introduce our characters. James T. Kirk himself, Chris Pine plays Brian who with his brother Danny (Lou Taylor Pucci) his pseudo GF Kate (Emily VanCamp) and Brian's GF Bobby (Piper Perabo) are our road survivors. Brian plays the rogue self appointed leader, Danny the obedient lap dog, Kate plays the damsel and Bobby who hottie with a heart.

The rules comes into play when they meet a father (Christopher Meloni) and his daughter (who has the disease) who need gas but as they follow rule #1, fate brings all of them together. The movie is one long road trip, we hear things about what may or may not be going on and they all end up at an abandoned school searching for a supposed cure.

Carriers is one depressing rest stop after another. The film gives some glimmer of hope, then coughs up and kills it without any remorse. It's this sort of without mercy storytelling that has an abandon all hope attitude.

Also, we get more in depthiness with our characters. The relationship between Brian and Danny is meshed with hostility and love and we get to hear some backstory of their lives before the virus. It's clearly a way to get us to care for these people and even at times dislike them. In many of these type of movies, the flick doesn't have time to let us know anything about our heroes. Instead, it's "Be chased! Run! Shoot in head!". Carriers allows us to get to know these people and all of them are a tad cool once you get to know them.

3.) The virus can survive on surfaces for up to 24 hours.

This rule should be combine with #4. So see the #4.

4.) Never touch anything that's not disinfected (or disinfect anything they've touched in the last 24 hours)

So obviously one of them gets infected. It's these moments that are as deeply human as they are real. I remember seeing the lines for the H1N1 vaccines and if you think about it, if there was a shortage, people would just be selfish and probably horde the vaccines. Would you do the same? It's easy to not care for a stranger but could you leave your husband, your wife, your kids just to save yourself?

It's always the same question these virus/zombie movies put to the test. As much as you'd like to think you'd take the high ground and be all Pope-ishly moral, I highly doubt we'd actually be civilized in an uncivilized world.

Carriers tries to answer this with hard truths.

5.) Take what you need and never look back (or the sick are already dead, they can't be saved)

After a confrontation with another survivor group at a country club, our scooby gang see the other end of the spectrum when they are questioned and all their supplies are taken. The ending is completely bleak and is the same tone throughout. No happy endings here, no reenacting Ghostbusters will Bill Murray.

Carriers is as depressing as you can get for a post apocalyptic movie (though I hear The Road is more so). Sure, I can dig a downer ending but I'd hope we'd have some hope of goodness inside all of us. Maybe I'm pessimestic about the human race (shit, it could be because I'm American) but I always thought the idea of an end of the world movie is to show how bad it can get and we can lose all our beliefs, but we can stick to at least one. I am a glass half full sorta guy. I think there are some of us that give a shit about each other.

Am I being naive? Maybe so, but that's why Carriers won't make my Top 20 list. I wanted to think we could be better than we are. It's that damn Star Trek vision of the future I guess.

Overall, Carriers is an effective film of post apocalyptic survival, characters you care about and a live and let die philosophy of who we are.

Wow, I'm totally depressed now. Maybe I'll move to the Bahamas.

Gore-ipedia

Infected ickyness
Virus trauma

Nude-ipedia

Oh I would have paid $5 to see Piper Perabo naked...but she isn't

WTF moment

Brian goes postal on some Christians

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Happy New Year's Eve! Trust me, this is not the flick you want to see going into 2010. But I can see why this was put on many Top 10 lists for 2009. It's a gritty, realistic and depressing look into the infection doomsday genre and doesn't care to give you any happy ending. See this, then see Zombieland. Its total ying and yang.

Carriers comes out on DVD on December 29th. Head over to the official site for more goodies.

Rating:

1/2

Check out the trailer below.