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Fridge Brilliance
- Why is the pharmacist armed? Because he's trying to maintain order to get people the medicine they need, and he expects to encounter drug addicts after the prescription-strength painkillers. There are real-life pharmacies in the US with guns, in case of attempted robbery. As mentioned, they are tempting targets for those addicted to prescription drugs or methamphetamines (which are made using cough medicine).
- At the same store, the police officer who runs by Gerry in favor of looting like everyone else, what does he grab? Baby food. He's not looking out for himself, he's trying to get food and supplies for his wife and infant child, a situation that is all too common with looters in disaster sites.
- There's a specific reason the zombies in this movie don't fully devour their victims like the traditional zombies do, and it's not just a difference of style. It's a specific plot point that the infected ignore someone who is terminally ill. The virus takes about 12 seconds or so to fully take over someone, but the virus is transmitted the second the victim is bitten. It's right about then that the zombie sees its prey as spoiled meat rather than a tasty morsel, so it moves on, leaving the bite victim to turn.
- Gerry walking unscathed through the mob of laboratory zombies at the climax, while a decent Awesome Moment, wasn't just him showing off: it gave him a chance to confirm whether Segen or the head doctor had been turned and were now part of the mob, themselves. Having gotten separated from his two escorts, he had no way to know if they were alive or not; if either or both hadn't been part of the undead mob or waiting in safety beyond the door, he'd have known to go straight back into D-Wing with two more syringes to (hopefully) find and inoculate his companions before the zombies could find them.
- HISHE proposes that it should have been easy for everyone to realize the zombies don't attack the sick because they would avoid hospitals full of sick people. But the thing is hospitals don't just contain people with illnesses, but physical injuries as well. Those don't deter zombies - if anything they'd be easier pickings - and with zombies pouncing on all the healthy people and causing panic throughout all the patients, who's going to have time to recognize this?
Fridge Horror
- How does Tommy escape his zombiefied family? Given events later in the film, it's likely that the boy is terminal.
- Unlikely, as you see him being chased by his zombie father. He wouldn't have been chased if wasn't healthy. Tommy probably escaped during the twelve second window of the transformation, and probably only got to Gerry by Plot Armor
- It looked like Tommy was prepared to escape, even though his father thought it was better for them to stay at home. He obviously had doubts that his father's plan was the right one.
- Considering that it appears mostly deserted, is everyone in Wales dead, evacuated or just keeping really quiet?
- The UK is actually very sparsely populated, Wales only has five cities in it, everything else is either villages or small towns, and between them is huge swathes (for the UK at least) of countryside, Generally if the UK was hit, it would of mostly have been England hit the hardest, being the largest country with the most cities (50 of them), heres context, the city of London, the capital of the UK has 8.982 million people, Wales has under half that as a whole. Statistics from the recent Coronavirus pandemic bears this out.
- Tommy escapes the zombie attack, as well as the zombification of his family. He shoots a zombie that is trying to attack Gerry. When Gerry, his family, and Tommy reach the roof of the apartment building, Tommy's zombified father attacks. Given the presence of Tommy's gun and the absence of his mother, it's very possible that he had to shoot his zombified mother to escape.
- Most of the zombies that got sucked out of the plane when the grenade went off were fully animate all the way down. If even one of them landed in good enough condition to crawl, Gerry may just have spread the infection to some part of Wales that'd been zombie-free until then.
- This is somewhat lessened by a few factors. First, Wales is (as mentioned above) sparsely populated. It's less likely that it could get to enough people to start a horde, but that's only if it's in the physical condition to do so, which brings up the second point- these were zombies that just fell out of a rapidly deteriorating airplane at terminal velocity. Even if the zombie could crawl, it's likely not in what is referred to as "Good" Shape.
Book
Fridge Brilliance
- Why did colleges like the one in Claremont do so well in defending themselves against zombies? College students are notorious for discussing and creating "z-plans," not to mention colleges would have enough people with different skill-sets (engineering, medicine, and even agriculture) to properly handle all the necessary requirements of holding out against a horde of zombies. In addition, colleges are primarily made up of people in their late teens and early 20s — or, put another way, people in the physical prime of their lives, and thus able to fight better and longer than the old or very young.
- Italy is mentioned having lost many southern areas to the zombies, yet it remained a major food and weapon producer (even supplying the French with the air rifles used in the Paris Catacombs). Northern Italy, where most of the production of both is concentrated, has a large plain that is connected to the south by a number of chokepoints in the Appennine mountains and a single narrow stretch of coastal plain. (In WWII, the allies struggled advancing northwards through Italy and undertook an amphibious hop to the south of France in an encircling move.) They put their Safe Zone just where food and guns were made.
- The interview describes the Shell-Shocked Veteran Todd Wainio as looking much older than his actual years. In the audiobook, he's played by Mark Hamill, who is about 20 years older than Wainio would be.
Fridge Horror
- Paul Redeker lives under heavy guard due to the vast number of people who might want to personally kill him for his willingness to sacrifice so many people during the Zombie War. Now, by the end of this chapter, the author has told anyone and everyone reading it exactly where he lives.
- It's possible the author changed the name of the facility and Redeker's alternative personality to stop that.
- Or, it's publically known where this guy lives, and the security around the man is just so tight it would be suicidal to try and get at him.
- For having such an integral part of the overall story, it can be rather odd that The Reporter who exposed the zombie plague to the general public, doesn’t receive any focus. However, given that her report indirectly led to The Great Panic, She very likely earned a huge target on her back.
- For one, it would be safe to assume the US government would not at all have been happy that a secret they have been trying to conceal was suddenly revealed to the whole world, and that’s not even mentioning all the chaos that followed. It is not out of the question for some government officials to seek do anything within their power to punish The Reporter, which would be much easier to do given how The US became more draconian during the height of the zombie apocalypse.
- The government isn’t the only thing The Reporter has to worry about. Since The Reporter’s story was seen as a key moment that sparked The Great Panic, this would have made her a convenient scapegoat for anyone looking to point blame for all chaos, which more than likely includes the countless number of people who lost their friends and family during the whole ordeal. It’s also likely that at least some of these individuals would bear a murderous grudge towards her.
- So there are two scenarios that explain why she isn’t interviewed or given focus. 1). She is dead. 2). She went into hiding in order to protect herself from The government and all the angry people who want her head.
