28 Days Later

While laziness would be the most truthful reason behind my lengthy hiatus from posting, I am tempted blame it on my reverence and genuine fear of blaspheming the holiness that is 28 Days Later. I hesitate to declare it my favorite zombie flick of all time, but it is undoubtedly a contender. I feel no reservation with stating that it is nothing short of bloody awesome.

*Warning* Spoilers

Before I get into discussing this film, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge that many purists out there may already be objecting to my calling 28 Days a zombie flick. As the story explains, the infected are not the living dead. You may also have noticed they move a wee bit faster than your average Romero zombie. However, I believe that we have no way of knowing what form the zombie apocalypse will take. Traditional belief has held that the plague will reanimate our dead, and drive them to feed on the living, but who’s to say that something similar to this scenario will not unfold? They may be fast, they may be slow, I think either alternative is possible. Hell, from a scientific perspective, a plague that drives the living to homicidal madness is probably more likely than one that reanimates the dead. Regardless, it made for a compelling story. I believe it fits within the boundaries of the genre, and it is undoubtedly relevant to the dialogue I am hoping to initiate with this blog.

[SOURCE OF OUTBREAK]

To begin, I’d like to point out that this is another outbreak initiated by a breach in security at research facility (think Resident Evil). The idea behind this scenario resonates well because it is based on a plausible series of events. Research is conducted all over the world, and the number of people studying hazardous materials is significant. The idea of animal rights activists breaking into a laboratory and releasing infected animals is quite easy to imagine.

In all fairness, I have to note that the film wasn’t too clear on how these scientists managed to develop a contagion that turned people (and monkeys) into adrenaline-fueled blood-thirsty cannibals, or how creating this lethal agent would help them understand society’s anger management issues. I’m OK with saying that it is a possibility, but I’m not really seeing the logic behind this line of research with regards to their goals. Hell, if they were trying to eliminate the emotion of rage, I would have thought their research would have produced subjects closer to that of traditional zombies (slow, emotionless automatons). But enough on that, I suppose we have to grant them some artistic license with their story.

[COMMUNICABILITY OF INFECTION]

Directly related to the previous topic is the information regarding the spread of the infection. As is illustrated at the start of the film (and can be inferred from the title), it takes 28 days, from release, for the virus to completely ravage England, leaving cities (specifically London) as nothing more than ghost towns. I’m not sure what an educated epidemiologist would say regarding the likelihood of this occurring, but from a lay-person’s perspective, it seems plausible. Simply consider that the contagion needed only 10 to 20 seconds to convert an uninfected subject into a host that actively sought out new hosts. Then consider the mobility of the infected, the violence they utilized, and the utter chaos they created. It is hard to imagine anyone surviving this scenario.

I think the film did an excellent job of conveying what happened by simply using Mark and Selena’s brief recount of the events to Jim. The way they described how it started in small villages, but before it could even be recognized for what it was, it was no longer on TV, “it was on the streets outside, it was coming in the windows.” Army blockades were a logical, panicked, response, but they were hastily deployed and ill prepared. It is easy to see how they would have little hope of holding back an infected homicidal populace.

Mark’s evocative explanation of his experience in Paddington Station painted the situation in particularly vivid and, I believe, accurate detail. Once the general population grasps the gravity of the situation, mass transportation hubs will be swamped with people desperately trying to flee in any manner possible. I believe Mark’s description of the surging crowds, the trampled bodies underfoot, the valueless cash, and the arrival of infected turning the whole place into a giant human meat grinder is an inevitable outcome in this scenario.

Another intriguing tidbit, hinted at in this scene, was the spread of the infection beyond the UK. Selena mentions that the day before the TV & radio stopped broadcasting there were reports of infection in New York and Paris. Now, as we saw from 28 Weeks Later, if the infection did in fact reach these cities, it looks like it was probably contained before it could spread further. However I’m not too sure how likely it is that infection would reach these destinations. The British Isles make for a rather convenient containment zone. The possibility of the infection reaching Paris and spreading across mainland Europe seems plausible, as it would be technically possible for the infected to reach France through the tunnel underneath the English Channel. However, how would they know to do this? Unless they were led through by fleeing uninfected survivors, I don’t see them running for miles, through the dark, towards a city that they shouldn’t have the mental capacity to remember. From the infected waiting in the church, to the young boy at the gas station, it doesn’t seem like the infected moved with any real determination unless they could see, or had recently seen, uninfected survivors in their close proximity.

As for the possibility of the infection reaching New York, I think it would be highly unlikely that a flight could make it across the Atlantic with a full load of infected maniacs. I doubt a plane would even manage to take off before the pilot noticed that his passengers were all screaming and ripping each other to shreds. However, it does seem fairly plausible that there could be uninfected people on a flight that had traces of infected blood on their clothing or possessions, which could ignite the spread of infection where ever they landed.

In either of these cases, the nature of this infection isn’t such that people can get infected, and then travel very far before the nature of their condition becomes readily apparent to everyone around them. Unlike traditional zombie theory, this scenario’s infection can quite easily burn itself out if some measure of containment can be maintained for a period of time. These bastards may be fast and ruthless, but their condition is damn easy to spot, and they will eventually starve to death.

[SHORT-TERM DEFENSE]

Returning to specifics of the film, the circumstances of Frank and his daughter Hanna are of interest. As I imagine is evident by being two of the few remaining survivors still in London, I believe they had established a fairly secure position for themselves at the top of that apartment building. It was sufficiently high above the ground that the sounds of them living there would not likely carry down to infected on the streets below, there were many neighboring apartment units from which to scavenge supplies, and they could have destroyed a flight or two of stairs to keep any roaming infected from wandering up to their apartment (as recommended by the Zombie Survival Guide).

However, in this particular circumstance, I’m guessing that destroying the stairs was simply beyond their capability. For one, apartment complex’s aren’t the most common places to find axes. Second, I think the stairs may have even been concrete. So unless they had a jack hammer handy, and a small army to defend themselves with while making all that noise, I guess that destroying the stairs simply wasn’t an option. However, I do think they could have done a better job at barricading the stairs. I don’t know how they managed to accumulate that pile of shopping carts, but I think there should have been more than enough furniture in the tower to effectively seal the entrance below. In their defense, I suppose the noise of the carts may have worked reasonably well as an alarm against intruders.

On another issue, water reclamation would undoubtedly be a major problem if there wasn’t regular rain. I think they would find a fair supply of food stores throughout all of the other apartment units, but it seems unlikely that any of their neighbors would have large quantities of bottled water stored (as in hundreds of gallons). As Frank may or may not have eventually guessed, the infected were still living people that would eventually succumb to starvation. If he and Hanna could simply ration their food out across two or three months, it likely that they would outlast the infected. However, if their supply of water ran out before that point (which Frank clearly knew was imminent), they might die of dehydration within a week.

[SURVIVOR FIRST CONTACT]

The arrival of Jim and Selena is an interesting issue that changed Frank and Hanna’s circumstances. The question of whether to let strangers into their bubble of safety is an obviously debatable issue. Frank would have no idea what type of people Jim and Selena were. They might be good people who, at worst, are just a further drain on Frank and Hanna’s limited resources, or they might be coldly practical survivalist who know that killing Frank and Hanna, and stealing their supplies, was the most logical course of action.

Frank was a warm-hearted character that took a gamble that paid off, but I do have to question whether it was a smart decision. Like Selena clearly put it in her discussion with Jim, they need us more than we need them. However, like Selena’s contraditory actions to save Jim at the film’s onset, I don’t know that I would have the heart to leave someone to die just outside my locked door.

Putting simple logic aside, I think we do have to consider the point that Hanna brought up about all of them needing each other. There’s not going to be much satisfaction in surviving if there is nothing to live for. As Selena noted, none of the madness of this apocalypse really mattered to Frank and Hanna because they had their love for each other. Maintaining our humanity may force us to make decisions that aren’t the best for furthering our survival, but how many of us will be able to continue living with out it.

[TRAVEL]

The next major chapter of this story is the group’s attempt to find safer refuge. Let us first consider their motivation for leaving. Given the status of their water supply, I don’t think they really had much of a choice. They could have gone scavenging through the city for water, but unless they found a warehouse full of bottled water, it seems unlikely that they would have ever found enough to survive for long. Certainly not enough to continue surviving indefinitely.

Additionally, given the risk of encountering infected, scavenging in the city would be insanely dangerous. With stealth, and a lot of luck, it is certainly possible for them to venture about. But as they continue to head out on additional trips, spent randomly searching for supplies, the likelihood of them eventually walking into a building full of infected, or at least attracting their attention and leading them back to the apartment tower, becomes greater and greater. You should also consider that while it may have been possible to outlast the infected in this scenario, staying in that apartment would have been a death sentence in a true undead apocalypse. The building would eventually become surrounded, escape would be impossible, and unless they somehow managed to get a farm and water reclamation equipment running on the roof, they would soon die of starvation or dehydration.

Now while I think that leaving the apartment was wise, I think that they made poor choice in pursuing the source of the military broadcast. I say this simply because it was a recorded message being played on a loop. As the characters even said in the film, there was no way of knowing if the man who recorded the message was still alive, or even who he claimed to be. They may have all been dead, or it may have been a trap. I suppose it had some value in the hope it inspired, but it was too much of a long shot to be worth the risk. Instead, they should have headed somewhere rural and isolated, perhaps somewhere costal or mountainous. Anywhere but towards another major metropolis, following a recorded message of unverifiable origin.

Next I have to wonder about their choosing to travel by automobile. It was probably their best choice, in that it offered them speed, some shelter, and room to carry them all, but what about the noise? It seems to me that there should have been crowds of infected chasing them through the streets. They should have been pouring out of buildings as the car passed by. While they desperately needed the supplies they picked up in that grocery store, I don’t see how they could have done that within the city without waking up every nearby infected the moment they pulled up in front of the store.

In contrast, I think their passage through the tunnel was a pretty fair portrayal of what they would have experienced, and what they should have been seeing the whole way through the city. Of course I draw a complete blank when it comes to understanding the decision to actually enter that tunnel in the first place. My only guess is that the films writers just couldn’t bear to cut this totally cool scene, even knowing that the characters choice would make no sense to viewers. So they left it in, and simply apologized to the audience with Jim’s comment that went something like, “You know why this is a shit idea, because it is OBVIOUSLY a shit idea.” Well, that’s good enough for me because it really was a freaking sweet scene.

I also really have to question the characters choice to camp right out in the open. That alone may have been forgivable if they had no choice, but it looked like they were sleeping around a bunch of stone ruins. Was there nothing their that could have been climbed up upon, offering slightly more protection while they slept? Most importantly, what the hell were they thinking building that fire, and keeping it burning throughout the night. The heat is unquestionably valuable, but I would have to be pretty damn certain that I was far away from any infected to risk lighting up a beacon like that in the middle of the night. Hell, a single candle cost Mark his life at the beginning of the film. AND, to top it all off, they drugged themselves up before going to sleep! I don’t think anything else need be said. That night of camping was one poor choice after another.

[MILITARY RULE]

The final chapter of this film is the survivors experience with the soldiers. Now if the radio broadcast had been live (and not a recorded loop), and if there had been some strong and compelling evidence that the voices over the radio were in fact who they claimed to be (and not bandits simply trying to lure other survivors into a trap), then I would say that seeking out the soldiers was the correct decision. I’ve made this argument in the past (post link, post link), and the evidence proved to apply in this situation as well. It was simply disastrous luck regarding the mental stability of the soldiers, and their commander’s decisions that turned their rescue into yet another fight for survival.

Most of the commander’s decisions and utilization of resources were highly commendable. With only a small number of soldiers remaining at his disposal, the choice to move to and occupy the nearby estate’s mansion was well made. As he explained to Jim, they had wide open grounds that provided clear fields of fire, and plenty of room of lay down mines that would serve as an alarm system against approaching infected. The mansion itself boasted plenty of room for inhabitants, a water boiler, and a generator. To top it off, the grounds were surrounded by a high perimeter wall. This was a position that could be turned into a true fortress, and could potentially be defended indefinitely.

Unfortunately, one variable that the commander had little control over was his soldiers’ mental well being. The deteriorating concern for discipline, the lack of hope for the future, and the thoughts of suicide are all quite foreseeable symptoms in these circumstances. The commander was correct in needing to give his men hope for a future. He was also correct in his position about survival, and about doing whatever you had to do. The logic just went horribly wrong when he authorized the raping of Selena and Hanna, and ordered the execution of Jim and the philosophical sergeant. There was no extended future to be found in raping these women. It may have temporarily satisfied the lust and restlessness of his soldiers, but that was no step towards establishing families that could survive to produce future generations. And executing Jim and the sergeant served only to pacify resistance to the rape, but further reduced his already limited number of defenders.

I don’t really understand why the commander would have made these decisions. His character seemed intelligent, logical, and mentally stable. He also didn’t come across as a lust-filled rapist, excited at the prospect of taking these women by force. He seemed to simply be going along with it because he thought it was necessary for their survival, which it wasn’t. I believe the prospect of events such as these are very likely in an apocalyptic scenario, and it was very interesting to witness the depiction, however the actions just don’t seem to fit the character that the commander appeared to be.

There were many other interesting details that emerged in the final portion of the film. For one, the soldiers use of biohazard gear when encountering Jim, Selena, Hanna, and Frank seemed extremely wise, given the ease at which Frank was infected. I also enjoyed the commander’s observations of the infected and decision to see how long it takes one to starve to death, even though it seemed extremely risky. It was also interesting to compare Jim’s fight against the soldiers to the commanders discussion about doing whatever was necessary to survive. He personally killed, or brought about the deaths of the entire group of soldiers, but it was what had to be done in order to save all that he held dear.

As I think many would agree, the human element was what made this film so interesting. The varying ways in which the characters coped with this tragedy, and how it governed their actions. Unexpected humor, bitter pragmatism, idealistic optimism, violent sexual frustration, desperate logic, and determined morality all made appearances, yet only partially cover the behavior and mindsets of the story’s characters. This is what makes 28 Days such a phenomenal film. I’m afraid that there was much more that could be discussed in the film, but I think I’m going to have to wrap this up. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, rent it, borrow it, or buy it. It will not disappoint.

Read other “28 Days/Weeks” posts:

• Return of the Two-Handed-Eye-Gouge-Death-Grip
  28 Weeks Later
• How best to deliver my new happy drug to the masses? Oh, I know, Ebola!
  28 Days Later: The Aftermath