Analyzing Crisis and Collapse in Narrative

Opening Scene and the ALF Activists

• The movie opens with a montage of violent images displayed on a bank of monitors.
• The screens are being observed in a surgical chamber where a chimpanzee is strapped to an operating table, skull dissected and wired to monitoring devices.
• A group of black-clad ALF Activists, wearing balaclavas, arrive in the laboratory, armed with bags and bolt cutters.
• The Activists spray paint a security camera black as they enter the lab, finding chimpanzees in cages.
• Most chimps are rabid and agitated.
• A dissected chimp is present at the end of the lab.
• The Activists intend to release the animals in the cages.
• A scientist warns the ALF about the chimps being infected and contagious.

Infection and Initial Outbreak

• The chimps exhibit a chemically restricted "single impulse".
• The scientist is desperate to explain that “in order to cure, you first must understand.”
• Chimps are infected blood and saliva, and one bite is enough to become infected.
• Ignoring this, the Activists free the chimps.
• The released chimps immediately attack.
• One activist is bitten in the neck, and another in the leg.
• The bitten activist screams as her face shows signs of infection.
• She attacks the scientist.
• An uninfected activist is horrified at the scene, and locks out the room as he faces the carnage.

Jim's Awakening

• The script cuts to "28 Days Later".
• Jim, a bicycle courier in his twenties, wakes up in a hospital bed connected to multiple drips.
• The hospital room is within the coma ward.
• Jim is confused and wanders out into the deserted hospital trying to call out for help.
• The wards and corridors are deserted with equipment, including a lot of dried arc blood.
• All the phone lines are dead.

London Abandoned

• On his journey through the hospital, Jim grabs a soft drink can.
• Emerging from the door, Jim calls out into the deserted forecourt.
• Jim walks through London from St. Thomas's Hospital
• Jim passes over Westminster Bridge and Whitehall to Trafalgar Square.
• Shops are looted, and cars lie abandoned.
• Graffiti stating “Repent. The end is extremely fucking nigh" is plastered on a church wall.
• Hundreds of bodies are layered over the floor within a church.
• Four people stand motionless in the church, soon revealing themselves to be infected.

Encounters, Rescue, and Rules for Survival

• Jim is attacked by an infected priest and runs.
• A woman's voice shouts "Here!"
• Jim is rescued by Selena, a black woman in her twenties, and Mark, a tall man; both wield molotov cocktails.
• Selena and Mark lead Jim to a newsagent shop.
• The newsagent shop has emptied shelves and a makeshift bed.
• Mark says a man walks into a bar with a giraffe.
• Selena says it began as rioting.
• Infection began in the blood.
• Tv stopped broadcasting.
• Army blockades became over run.
• The day before TV stopped broadcasting, there were reports in New York and Paris.
• Mark and Selena explain that Jim's family are most likely dead like all the others.
• Mark details the rules for survival.
• Never go anywhere alone.
• Move only in the daylight unless you have no choice.

Search for Family

• Jim insists goes to go and find them the next day.
• They approach Greenwich single file on an abandoned Docklands Light Railway.
• Behind the train, abandoned bags, suitcases and backpacks litter the area.
• Mark picks up a handbag from the tracks, discards condoms.
• Inside Jim finds a mobile phone.
• The phone says searching for signal, the message blanks.
• Smears of dried blood are smeared on the train.
• A face of dead can we seen on the train window.

Greenwich and Grief

• Arriving at Greenwich, Jim, Selena and Mark jog across Greenwich Common towards Westlink street.
• They arrive at the house.
• The house is quite tidy stacked newspapers and plates inside, all showing signs of abandonment .
• News paper headline reads “Containment Fails”
• Selena sniffs the air, alarm that smell is in the house.
• At the top of the stairs are two decomposed bodies.
• They find a note that reads “Jim! with endless love!”
• It’s shown Jim is has locked himself with the dead bodies
• There is a flashback to when Jim was young.

The Decision to Persist

• After Jim and Selena have viewed their loved one dead, and there are now with Mark in the living room they talk about plans to do from here and more long term prospects
• Selena asks Jim if either wants a family.
• He say’s he would.
• The group then discuss heading to a small area, or farm.
• Or they can find out more and possibly some more safe people to live with
• With Mark wanting to take things and progress to possible rebuild society, even with a loss family, this puts the rest of the group a different state of mind

The Tower Block

• Later that same episode, the group decides to go to Tower Block.
• From here they discuss there prospects, and what that might look like now they are a team

Creating Supplies

• The next day in another quick scene, it is shows the group working together to find ways to create supplies for themselves.

On The Road

• On the road, they make plans, and mark comes to an idea to get fuel

Fuel Foray turns Deadly

• Mark plans for a fuel foray, worrying Jim and Selena.
• At a truck stop, Jim expresses that Selena and Mark are like family.
• Deciding to retrieve fuel, Selena expresses that the group may get separated, but Mark seems set on it, causing more worry.
• Jim has another flash back as if on Valium.

Examine the progression of a narrative crisis, from initial indicators to societal breakdown. Analyze characters' inferences, infrastructural failures, and ineffective containment attempts. Explore themes in post-apocalyptic films.