... the writers had no idea how to end this movie, and it shows. I've flagged this as a spoiler post, so if you haven't seen it yet, don't read any more.
The ending of this movie, while intriguing for about a minute, doesn't fulfill our needs as viewers. There's no resolution and none of our questions are answered. They had themselves a fascinating plot and premise, did a great job building the suspense slowly in the beginning, developed our two leads enough to make them passable characters.... then what? That's about where the writers ran out of steam. They've set up the apocalypse, where children turn on their parents - we get our needed blood and gore - and suddenly, the producers said: "Okay, now wrap it up". After all the development they built up, they suddenly realized they had only 10-15 minutes to come up with an ending... so they used the typical: "open for interpretation ending" cop-out. That's a fine ending if executed well in a Suspense/Crime Drama story... but I don't watch movies like this to get in touch with my inner erudite. This movie is meant to amuse me, not make me think.
Think of all the classic horror movies that are in our culture. We can argue whether they are 'good' horror movies or not, but no one will refute these are the most popular: Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Excorcist, Alien, Night of the Living Dead, Village of the Damned. Each of these movies comes to a clear resolution in 1 of 3 ways: 1. All the main characters die. 2. The horror element is neutralized/destroyed or 3. We know nothing's changed, the horror elements there... and we can most likely look forward to a sequel. The Plague doesn't fit into either one of these solid endings... and thus, another perfectly good 1 hour and 15 minute movie is ruined in the last 15 minutes.
The ending of this movie, while intriguing for about a minute, doesn't fulfill our needs as viewers. There's no resolution and none of our questions are answered. They had themselves a fascinating plot and premise, did a great job building the suspense slowly in the beginning, developed our two leads enough to make them passable characters.... then what? That's about where the writers ran out of steam. They've set up the apocalypse, where children turn on their parents - we get our needed blood and gore - and suddenly, the producers said: "Okay, now wrap it up". After all the development they built up, they suddenly realized they had only 10-15 minutes to come up with an ending... so they used the typical: "open for interpretation ending" cop-out. That's a fine ending if executed well in a Suspense/Crime Drama story... but I don't watch movies like this to get in touch with my inner erudite. This movie is meant to amuse me, not make me think.
Think of all the classic horror movies that are in our culture. We can argue whether they are 'good' horror movies or not, but no one will refute these are the most popular: Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Excorcist, Alien, Night of the Living Dead, Village of the Damned. Each of these movies comes to a clear resolution in 1 of 3 ways: 1. All the main characters die. 2. The horror element is neutralized/destroyed or 3. We know nothing's changed, the horror elements there... and we can most likely look forward to a sequel. The Plague doesn't fit into either one of these solid endings... and thus, another perfectly good 1 hour and 15 minute movie is ruined in the last 15 minutes.