If nothing else, the beginning of Patient Zero is an unintentional example of the informal fallacy known as proof by repeated assertion. The movie opens with a newsreel montage; one of the soundbites states that “The few medical and military personnel left desperately search for Patient Zero.” Less than five minutes later, protagonist Morgan (Matt Smith) narrates, “The few medical and military personnel left searched desperately for Patient Zero, hoping that from his blood we can engineer an anti-virus” (oddly, the title sequence ends with Morgan doing a Catapult Nightmare; does that mean that he dreamt the montage?) Later on, Dr. Gina Rose (Natalie Dormer) will claim that “We cannot reverse-engineer a vaccine without Patient Zero.”
Clearly, the filmmakers thought that Patient Zero was such a cool title (but is it really, though?) that it didn’t matter whether or not it made a lick of fucking sense — and while I agree that Index Case doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, the fact remains that it doesn’t work that way; to put it in perspective, the scientists who developed vaccines for the novel coronavirus had no fucking idea who their patient zero was, and yet that didn’t stop them. I’m aware that this movie was released prior to the Covid-19 pandemic, but I’m pretty sure the science would be the same.
Anyway, the virus in the film is “a super-strain of rabies that turns humans into violent predators. We call them The Infected” (The infected? Isn’t that what you’d call anyone with an infection? I would have called them ‘Cujos,’ but that’s just me). What makes it “super” is that it has none of the drawbacks of real-life rabies and all of the perks — insofar as a viral disease that causes encephalitis can be said to have perks, that is. In the real world, the time between contracting the disease and the onset of symptoms is usually 1-3 months, though it can take as long as a year. Moreover, rabies is invariably fatal in unvaccinated humans once neurological symptoms have appeared. In Patient Zero, conversely, “The virus can transform an infected human within 90 seconds,” resulting in “Acute aggressiveness, [and] a reduced sense of pain and restlessness,” but not death. What can I say? A zombie by any other name…
According to Morgan, “There is no reasoning with the Infected. Communication is completely impossible. Except for me. I can speak their language. Why? I’ve been bitten, but not turned.” The nature of this “language” is sadly never explored; when Morgan talks to an Infected, they both speak English, but what the other characters (who chime in with such questions as, “What on Earth’s he saying to you?”) are hearing is anybody’s guess. What exactly is it supposed to be going on here? Are Morgan and the Infected, like, literally barking and snarling at each other? (they do call this “super-strain” the “mad dog disease”). That might have been actually funny, leading me to believe that Patient Zero would have worked better as a comedy.
Now, if you’re wondering, ‘isn’t Morgan’s blood that they should be reverse-engineering or whatever,’ you’d be correct — sort of. Dr. Gina has indeed been developing vaccines from Morgan’s blood (though why she hasn’t been working on that full time instead of going on a wild goose ‘patient zero’ chase, I haven’t the foggiest); the problem is that the good doctor has been testing these vaccines on rats— which, according to the CDC, “are almost never found to be infected with rabies and have not been known to transmit rabies to humans.” D’oh!
Perhaps even more baffling than anything else, however, is to find Stanley Tucci slumming it in this stupid fucking movie. He plays “The Professor,” an allegedly “smart, a strategically advanced Infected” who does not very smart things. For example, he “Trojan horses” himself into the “underground nuclear silo” where most of the movie takes place. Once there, he starts “debating” Morgan, until the latter wises up that the Professor is merely stalling for time. Morgan suspects that the Professor is somehow sending out a signal revealing the location of the silo; as it turns out, it’s a previous Infected (introduced in the first act) who has a tracking device sewn into his flesh. In other words, there was no reason for The Professor, presumably the leader of the Infected, to risk life and limb by getting himself purposefully captured other than that the filmmakers couldn’t find a smoother way to convey the bad guys’ plan to the audience. “Professor Asshole”? More like Professor Numbskull.
90% of Everything is Crap 
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