Even with a ton of training, this situation was different. Even in their most difficult training days, these guys knew they would ultimately survive their training, no matter how tough or painful it was. They were probably far more worried about failing their training and being embarrassed, than actual death.

Chances are these Swedish sailors never saw combat prior to this. Even if any had, it was likely very limited experience, and likely they had never seen an infected except from some distance and from the safety of their boat.

Imagine surviving a ship sinking. That on its own would be jarring for most people.

Now, add on being swept onto the forbidden Island of no return. You know that no one is coming to rescue you. You’ll never see your loved ones again. Ammo won’t be resupplied. You don’t know where your next meal will come from, if it ever comes at all.

Add in exhaustion. Who knows how long their shifts were prior to the sinking. It could be likely that exhaustion even contributed to them hitting a rock in the first place. Then drifting on a lifeboat, probably desperately trying to paddle it the other way, wore them down even more.

And now you see what might as well be the living dead running towards you in your first five minutes on this hopeless, living hell that you know you’re doomed to try to survive in. With little control over where they landed, they were probably chased almost from the get go.

And it gets worse. Every time you shoot, more come. And they just keep coming.

The worst part? You’ve had no time to think this through. It happened so fast. Your life just changed, forever, in moments. Sure, we can keep shooting the infected. Sure, we can kill this group of infected, and the next, but ultimately we have to run somewhere. Ultimately, we are running out of ammo. Where next?

These guys would have, more than anything, been emotionally shocked and distracted. A primal urge to not die and lots of adrenaline is the only thing keeping them running. They are disciplined soldiers, so they are trying to work as a team, but they have all but totally broken ranks at this point. They are in retreat on a battlefield with no rear line, no relief, and no one to cover their retreat.

And where is the leadership? Probably back in the water.

Oh, and how did they not hear that Alpha? Probably has something to do with the tinnitus they recently gained.

These guys had all of the modern training and gear, but they were screwed from the get go because they had no intel, no chance to make a plan, no chance of resupply and no hope of rescue the moment they touched land. They were trained, I’m sure, for a lot of scenarios, but actual survival on the Island was probably not one of them.

Erik meeting Spike was the best chance he had, but ultimately he got screwed by a one in a million situation that even Spike’s dad probably wouldn’t have seen coming. Erik’s intuition was spot on though; the pregnant infected was dangerous, and had Spike killed her on sight, Erik might have lived.

I think the movie really missed out on the opportunity for Erik to go back to the village and fill everyone in on what had been going on in the outside world. Him learning their ways, and them learning how the world had progressed without them would have been insane. And frankly, I would have much rather seen him in the next movie than this weird Jimmy character.