"With a twist. You never see coming."
A 2006 post 9-11 terrorism movie about a generic guy named Brad and his generic wife named Lexi, who get caught up in a large-scale terrorist attack on Los Angeles. Informed by the radio that the bombs carried a biological agent, Brad uses duct tape to seal off the house while Lexi, who was on her way to work, is trapped outside. Brad refuses to let her enter the house, leading to a great deal of hammed-up drama.
Supposedly explores how average people would react to a biological attack.
Contains examples of:
- All for Nothing: Unusually, this ends up applying for both Brad and the terrorists.
- From the standpoint of the terrorists, the virus they clearly went to a lot of trouble to develop and deploy via a series of bombings turns out not to thrive in environments with large quantities of fresh air, meaning that they could have probably killed more people by just building some nail-bombs instead.
- It gets turned up to eleven for Brad, as his doing such a good job of sealing off his house actually dooms him rather than protecting him.
- Artistic License – Biology: Despite being described as a virus in the film, the deadly pathogen behaves much more like bacteria. Biological agents in general, have difficulties spreading via fire and explosions as described in the story. Also, viruses don’t power-level their way to ‘legendary plague’ status by just hanging out in a sealed environment.
- Cruel Twist Ending: By sealing up his house, Brad has created an environment for the virus to mutate into a more deadly variant. He will die. His wife, sealed outside, will survive.
- Death by Pragmatism / Death by Irony: Brad did what was arguably the right thing by sealing up the house and not letting his wife in. It also results in his death and her survival.
- Downer Ending: Brad dies, but Lexi lives. Only really a downer, if you still sympathize with Brad by the end.
- Duct Tape for Everything: Used extensively to seal the house.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: Is Brad the bad guy for sealing his wife out of the house? Or is Lexi the bad guy for wanting to come inside and possibly contaminate two other people?
- Heroic Sacrifice: Alvaro dooms himself by leaving the quarantined house to be with his wife. Or did he?
- Incurable Cough of Death: It's one of the early symptoms of the disease, eventually leading to coughing up blood.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Brad’s negative traits are hinted at the beginning, and then really shine when he becomes cowardly, and selfish, complaining about the heat, when his wife is coughing up blood. He seals her outside and pretty much seems to be ok with watching her die. All of this backfires in the end, when his efforts to save himself, actually protected her, and doomed him instead. This was the exact opposite outcome both of them were expecting.
- Not Quite the Right Thing: Sealing Lexi outside. ...and chiding her for wanting to shower in a contamination-centric disaster.
- Psychological Horror / Sadistic Choice: If your loved one was outside, and opening the door would mean you would die, would you open the door?
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Because Brad sealed the house, the virus mutated and became lethal, so they kill him.
- The Dog Bites Back: After Brad sealed Lexi outside, she unknowingly gets him back by throwing her cell phone into the house, introducing the contagion.
