Headscratchers / 28 Days Later

• How did Jim survive on one IV for a month? Maybe he could go that long without calories, but certainly not without hydration.
  • It's possible they kept the hospital operating for as long as possible, and there may have been brave doctors and nurses standing by looking after these patients. So maybe there were other people with him seeing that he got more hydration, and they just cleared out before he woke up.
  • The key slid under the door may imply some lovely brave person was working late. Realised Jim wasn't far off waking up (meaning they knew about his state, and by extension maybe changed his drip and kept looking after him) and did a good deed by leaving the key - and the door locked because hell has already broken out.
• After only a few weeks, the soldiers were so blinded by lust that they were going to rape a child. That's where this movie lost me.
  • Actually, for all they dress Hannah up too, none of the soldiers actually seem interested in her. Not that that makes them any less terrible, but that observation can make the whole thing (slightly) less uncomfortable to watch.
  • They aren't blinded by lust. They've lost hope of survival because they have no future to look forward to. Women represent that hope that things could get better for them, and they aren't going to let things like consent or age get in the way of that hope.
    • Exactly; it wasn't lust alone but also a desire to continue the survival of the human race.
  • That's still an extremely short time for soldiers to be so overcome with despair that they'll resort to rape. It's not uncommon for soldiers to be separated from their wives/loved ones for a year or more in Real Life, and most of them can avoid cheating on their spouse, much less rape. There are obviously exceptions, but it is grounds for trial by court-martial, dishonorable discharge, and imprisonment. For an officer to condone it a mere month after the plague first hits is a bit much.
    • Of course, those situations are a little different from the end of the world.
    • In less than four weeks after first infection Britain's population went almost extinct. There is no "too fast" here. Those men are one hundred percent sure they are the last human beings in big radius, surrounded by hundreds of dangerous carriers of easy-transmitting disease and it's really no wonder they are convinced they are alone. Think about it. They are not some random Rag Tag Bunch Of Misfits. They are soldiers on duty. They didn't pick up any radio broadcasts for past two weeks. No fellow soldiers out there. No HQ. No civilian activity. No nothing. If the military got overrun, then who could survive the carnage they've seen by their own eyes? And they are in their home ground, so that means they can't just pack and go back home.
    • Exactly. The soldiers aren't overseas fighting another country until the wars over and they can come home; they're in the middle of an apocalyptic pandemic, they've probably seen their buddies killed or infected along with their family and any girlfriends or wives they might've had and in their mind the world as they've known it is over. And the officer probably believes the same thing. His family and friends are dead and the only people he's got left are his soldiers. We heard that he had found one of his soldiers with a gun in his mouth because the world was "futureless" so in a desperate attempt to keep his men together and keep morale up, he "promised them women." He was probably already cynical (his people killing people speech at dinner) before the infection, so seeing people he knew or loved turned into diseased beasts probably traumatised him to point of insanity. Plus, except for the Only Sane Man, most of the soldiers were young kids who probably had their whole lives ahead of them before, and are now (in their mind) "futureless". Certain people do crazy things after passing their Despair Event Horizon.
    • Not to mention that military officers being complicit in rape isn't unheard of in this reality.
    • And who's to say all the soldiers would have actually gone through with it? One of them is seen shaking his head looking sorry for Hannah and Selena just before they get changed. And they all do leave the room to allow them to change. Intending to force yourself on someone and actually going through with it aren't mutually exclusive. There's probably mob mentality going on. One of the soldiers (can't remember the name) definitely was planning to but the others were probably just playing along with him (that annoying 'Lad Culture' thing).
  • British troops are some of the most disciplined and reliable in the world, especially with forces like the SAS (though the guys in the movie were regular squaddies rather than special forces). As a result I must agree that I thought this sub-plot was totally ridiculous really, even in an apocalyptic scenario. The idea that soldiers would become slavering psychopaths within a month makes no sense when the majority of non-trained survivors seen in the movie seem completely sane by comparison. We're supposed to believe that being issued good equipment and being given physical and mental survival training makes people more susceptible to going totally nuts? The only way it makes sense in my mind is if the Major himself was an inherently immoral opportunist who defected early from Command during the crisis, going completely rogue with his men and willingly shaping them into predatory brigands. This is supported by his vicious attitude and his comment of "I promised [the men] women", which is something no sane or responsible commander would ever do unless they feared their own men were going to kill and replace them. Long story short: the British army as a whole is probably scattered but helping survivors and still trying to follow orders previously given to them. The Major and his men, however, belonged to a weaker force of greener recruits who lacked the training and discipline most soldiers received. The Major warped them into his personal death squad.
  • Depending on whether these soldiers have had to fight overseas before the movie starts, they may also be dealing with PTSD or other traumas brought on by war - which can eff you up mentally without the right treatment. If you want to interpret the soldiers' actions differently, the ones who plan to rape Selena and Hannah (it's clearly not all of them and it's impossible to tell if any would actually go through with it since they never get the chance) may have convinced themselves that they're repopulating the world and giving humanity a second chance. Of course the reason this part of the film might seem a bit messy is because it was a hasty change from the plan to give Jim and Frank a blood transfusion to save the latter's infection.
• Have the soldiers not considered simply vacating to another country? Though there were (spurious) rumours about the plague being in Paris and New York, it seems improbable that they wouldn't at least try to get off the Island, rather than resorting to raping the few survivors.
  • They don't know that they've been quarantined, in their mind the world has ended, they're still alive, and England is their home. Why leave one location that's familiar for an unknown location if you expect the same chaos there too?
  • Not to mention they've created themselves more or less safe haven in the mansion. They got shelter, easy to defend area, supplies...
  • It's also implied by the dialogue that they've become so depressed by the crisis that they're merely just sitting around waiting to die. The thought of escaping to find something better hadn't crossed their minds. This puts them in direct contrast to Selena - who started out with the same attitude but quickly realised that it was better to find some reason to live and something to live for.
  • As much as Cabin Fever was setting in, the manor is a pretty safe environment. They can go to sleep and walk about freely without fear of attack - two luxuries they'd have to give up if they ventured beyond its boundaries. So maybe that seemed preferable to blindly trying to find another place that isn't guaranteed to be safer.
• Where are all the cars in this film? The motorways are completely deserted, when surely they would be chocked full of cars from when people were trying to evacuate the cities.
  • There were deleted scenes with piled up cars blocking motorways, but the CGI looked fake so the scene was cut.
  • And why exactly the roads should be blocked in the first place?
  • It depends on which route they were using. And can you imagine millions of people trying to drive out of London at once? In the middle of a crisis. The tunnel they got through was blocked with loads of cars that tried to crash through. The reason there aren't more cars on the motorways is probably because very few got out of the cities and the ones that did were the ones that lived.
  • And who in their right mind would abandon their car on the motorway? In the city maybe, since there would be somewhere to run to. Unless it runs out of petrol, where are they going to run to if they leave their cars? Alternately the ones that did get abandoned got stolen by other stragglers who didn't have cars of their own.
  • In a Doylist sense, it's a stylistic choice. Danny Boyle has stated that he wasn't interested in depicting devastation so much as abandonment; he was going for the effect of London (and everywhere else) not so much being devastated but emptied, and having a whole load of cars clogging up all the streets would for better or worse diminish that (as well as being a bit beyond both the budget and the low-fi filmmaking methods being used). And while it might not be strictly realistic, considering that one of the things everyone tends to praise the movie for is how effectively creepy the scenes of the abandoned London are, he arguably had a point.
• Considering the infected don't eat -likely- don't sleep, don't hydrate, don't exercise proper hygiene, are constantly vomiting large quantities of their own blood, and run full speed -with full exertion as a result- after any potential target they see, shouldn't they all fall over dead within three to five days after initially being infected?
  • Presumably, some do. We see quite a few human corpses littered throughout Britain during the travel montage, namely during Jim, Selena, Hannah, and Frank's exit from London. It could be that the virus allows some Infected to last longer than others because of the effect it has upon their minds. It takes a human body quite a while, after all, to die from lack of hydration and malnutrition. In the case of hydration, the reason why humans generally die within a few days is because their body goes into shock from dehydration, which the virus could, presumably, keep from happening. In which case, it would probably take a week or two for an Infected human to fully give out from dehydration.
    • "Going into shock", in this context, isn't a psychological BSOD-effect: it's a life-threatening drop in blood pressure due to severe loss of fluid. No virus is going to be capable of averting that, because it can't just conjure up extra plasma out of nothing.
  • It's partly hand-waved In-Universe - West restrained Mailer just to check out how long it will take him to die out of all the factors listed above. We simply never got the chance to check out the results, because all scenes in the mansion happens in about 30 hours. So Mailer got infected three days before the climax, where we last saw him.
  • If you take the sequel as canon, it says that all the infected died of starvation after a couple of months.
  • And doesn't a drop of blood from an Infected's corpse turn Frank? If their dead blood could do that then maybe the ones that did die of whatever causes still managed to infect others through accidents or coincidences.
• Realistically, there's no way Jim could get that much blood on him and not have a drop of it get into his eyes or mouth. Even if he did somehow avoid ingestion or eye contact, there's no way he could keep from inhaling a few droplets—presumably, if the Rage virus can spread through oral membranes, it can spread through nasal membranes too.
  • Which scene? The one where the infected burst into the house after he lights the candle, or the part at the end?
  • In case of the "candle attack", he wasn't sprayed with the blood that much. Actually all he got was bloodied hands and sprayed clothes and all the blood came after the infected got killed, so no High-Pressure Blood. In case of the climax, all the blood Jim is covered came from healthy soldiers whom he killed.
  • The only Infected involved in the climax is Mailer, so less chance of getting your blood contaminated when there's only one that you barely interact with.
• So I am genuinely curious about this, but why didn't Frank bring his riot gear with him? That seems like an incredibly useful piece of equipment against the infected, why not bring it?
  • Most likely Idiot Ball, but a justifiable in-universe explanation could be that his gear, despite the protection, probably wouldn't be of much use in an open area. Keep in mind he wore that stuff and was guarding a small entryway, so it would be easy to block off the zombies. In an open field, all it would take is one zombie, or more likely ten, attacking him from behind while he's busy fighting/blocking another from the front. He also didn't wear it 24/7 since it would probably be uncomfortable for extended periods, and it didn't seem like their car had much more room for anything else, so instead of that extra weight, they would have likely have chosen to carry more food/water.
  • He could have packed it. But once they were out of London they'd be in the countryside - so less infected to ward off. Three or four people could easily overpower a handful of infected in a wide open area, as opposed to a whole crowd in an apartment staircase. So there mightn't be much need for it.
  • Also they knew they were heading towards soldiers. They assumed the soldiers would have weapons and means of protection (which they did). So no reason to fill up car space with it. Also they had a car, which means they could drive away from the majority of threats. If they were going to walk to Manchester however, then the gear would be useful.
  • As someone who owns a full set of riot gear complete with a shield, from experience it's very bulky and somewhat heavy, a large shield can be used in a confined space well enough to protect the wearer but unless you are in formation with other shields, you are vulnerable from being flanked. Frank would have trouble driving with the full gear on, most Riot vests are either thick kevlar vests or padded vests with a stab protection layer in, you can't turn your head easily with a riot helmet on either. So yes the riot gear would be very useful in certain scenarios but a massive detriment in other scenarios, it's the reason regular Police that wear bullet-resistant vests don't wear full military plate carriers.
  • Even if the riot gear would be too heavy to wear, why not at least take the helmet and face shield? It should at least provide some facial protection against the infected projectile vomiting blood into an open orifice...
• Why do the infectees never turn against each other?
  • The virus is compelling them to attack people who aren't already infected as way of spreading itself. Perhaps they only attack those who smell or look uninfected or who move in a certain way. I don't know if this would be the case in a real-life scenario (do rabid animals attack other rabid animals?) but it makes sense in context - if it was any other way, any survivors would just have to hole up until the infected killed each other off. Not much of a horror movie in that.
  • Presumably the researchers would have found out why if their lab hadn't been busted in the opening.
  • According to Quora, rabid animals have no reason not to attack each other, but Rage is not a 1:1 match to rabies anyway, so it may well have accidentally had a "don't attack other infectees" behaviour engineered into it.
• Am I forgetting something, but how did a bike messenger take out a group of trained soldiers? Suddenly, Jim had ninja skills.
  • The parallels are meant to be between Jim and the infected. He's essentially been driven mad by his experiences and is operating on pure rage. Also the soldiers had been fatigued for a month. When you're left to laze around doing nothing strenuous for a certain amount of time, you'll lose some of your fitness capabilities. Not to mention they were depressed and scared as well.
  • He mostly sneaks up on them and catches them off guard. Soldiers have plenty of offensive and defensive skills and training, but they're not super-human, and they can be taken out by an otherwise untrained opponent who manages to get the drop on them same as anyone else can. And of course he unleashes the infected soldier on them as well — so they're not just worrying about Jim, but Jim and also the crazed infected lunatic hunting them down.
  • Jim frees Mailer specifically so he'll have a better chance against these trained soldiers.
• You're telling me Jim walks through London shouting hello at the top of his lungs and not one Rage zombie until he gets to the church hears him in a city of (at the time) 7 and a half million? I get it that he is the main character therefore having him besieged by hundreds (if not thousands) of infected at the start of the movie would make it a short movie but still.
  • It was daytime, in the first movie is said that infected can't stand sunlight (this was overlooked in the sequel though).
  • The virus could have mutated to give sunlight resistance by the time of the sequel.
• If it hasn't rained in ten days, why does the countryside look so lush and very green everywhere? Especially the field of flowering plants that appears so early in the travel montage, which can't be that far from London and would probably need regular irrigation to thrive even if it had rained a little.
  • The UK is in a moist climate in general, it takes more than ten days to dry out the UK countryside enough for things to look parched. The soil in general in the UK has a lot of water retaining organic material too. During the 2018 drought, as example, it took two or three months without significant rain before it started getting notable parch marks.
  • The out of universe reason is that this was a modest budget film that couldn't afford to dry out half the countryside for that desired effect. But as said above, it's unlikely things would have dried up that bad in only ten days.
• Why was the Cambridge Primate Lab's security and lockdown ability so laughably bad? We see the activists swiping a stolen keycard to get in, but other than that basic security they're able to waltz straight into a lab packed with animals carrying the most horrifyingly dangerous contagion imaginable. Not only that, but there seems to be no sensible quarantine procedure - you'd think the scientist could have just left the room and completely locked it down with massive blast doors if the place had been designed properly. And finally, why was such incredibly dangerous research entrusted to an insecure place in Cambridge instead of, say, a top secret heavily fortified military bunker?
  • Isn't this research illegal, which is why the activists are trying to shut it down in the first place? So maybe their resources were limited.
  • Even though the film doesn't explain, in the graphic novel, a few days before the first infection, the anti-rage agent was created by accident when it unexpectedly mutated into the Rage Virus, and shortly before it breached the civilian world, an unnamed person on the phone said that the virus could have other applications, meaning that it was starting to be in process of transferring the resources to a more secure facility, but that's just speculation.
  • If the military/government didn't know about the virus (until it was too late), then they couldn't very well protect it's R&D.
• Why do Selena and Mark use bladed weapons against the infected? They're both well aware that even one drop of infected bodily fluid can turn you into a zombie, and yet Selena uses a huge machete that repaints Jim's entire kitchen in infected blood and throws it all over the place. A club would seem far more sensible, especially since you could simply break a zombie's leg or bust their head to take them down without massive risk of infecting yourself.
  • Maybe the pickings for weapons were pretty slim and that's all they could get? A club is also quite heavy to carry around, and Selena and Mark prefer to outrun the Infected - only fighting if they have to.
  • Selena also seems like the type who'd be Crazy-Prepared and make sure she keeps her mouth shut when fighting the Infected. So maybe normally she is extremely careful, but she got ambushed in the middle of the night in a small house.
• How the hell did Jim know about the secret passageway behind the mural when he's being chased by the Infected at the end? He didn't explore the house prior, and I don't see why anyone else would tell him even if they knew about it. He runs right for it and enters it without hesitation.
  • He spotted it and kept it to himself until the time was right.
• How did Major West change his uniform so fast? He was in his dress uniform during the dinner scene, but it seems like a second later he was in his combat uniform (and it looked like he had completely changed, not just put on his camouflage jacket over his dress uniform).
• How is anyone - especially the soldiers - unawares that the rest of the world is fine? Radio broadcasts from at least mainland Europe should still be receivable in England, so presumably someone would have picked them up.
  • The manor does seem to be in a pretty rural area, so maybe the reception isn't as good there. It's also possible that the reports of infection in Paris and New York turned them off trying to find out more.
• Who is keeping the lights on in the grocery store?
  • Perhaps the manager of the shop repurposed it as a holdout against the Infected with some means of off-the-grid generator, but got turned or killed on a supply run very soon to the events of the film, hence he's MIA.