Movie: Daybreakers

This is one of those posts where I inflict my nerd on you guys. So...you've been warned. There is no substantive information in this post, aside from wild, dare I say it, 'academic' speculation.

For those who know nothing of this movie, the basic premise is that approximately ten years ago, there was an outbreak of a virus that turned the vast majority of the human race into vampires. Transmitted originally from a bat bite (we're not told *how* this bat got this mutated virus), it was thence transferred through the bits of humans-turned-vampire feeding, until the human population is 'endangered'. At the point in time when the movie opens, the remaining humans are kept in 'blood banks' and bled dry to feed the vampire population, and the 'free range' humans are being hunted down. The vampires have reached a critical point, where if they don't find a substitute for human blood (they can feed on animals, but the virus turns the animals into vampires, and so that population has been depleted as well) they will run out of blood in a month, and that's no good, because at that point the lack of blood begins to mutate them into these batlike monsters they call Subsiders (the hunger also drives them to feed on other vampires, which speeds up the mutation). So, there's the set up. Of course, there's a human resistance, and they find a vampire who doesn't want to be a vampire, who wants to help the humans, and they search for a cure, and there's lots of fighting and blood. All the things we need for a good vampire movie. That's not the point though. Here's the point:

Early in the movie, we see that the vampires don't have reflections. This is a common bit of vampire lore, that they cast no reflection. Now, most legends would say it's because they have no soul, what with them being damned reanimated corpses and all. However, let's be fair and say that, even in the legends, that makes not a bit of sense. I will accept the lack of reflection in mythologies where the vampires contain some sort of mystical factor. For instance, in those worlds where a vampire can turn into mist, bats, wolves, or any sort of animal for that matter, control peoples minds, etc. I can accept that there may be a magical reasoning behind the lack of reflection. However, in worlds where that is not the case, most authors give the vampires reflections. Why? Because they have solid forms, and therefore should, according to the laws of physics vis a vis light, cast reflections.

Have you figured out my problem yet?

In the world of 'Daybreakers', the vampires do not possess any sort of magical 'touch'. Everything that they are is a mutation caused by a virus. It's a 'scientific' universe. So why, pray tell, do the vampires not reflect?

A friend of mine, while we were discussing this on our walk, brought up the example of the Invisible Man, saying, perhaps, that there was some sort of chemical component to the mutated virus that caused light to refract around the vampires. I have to reject this theory based on the fact that the vampires were not, in point of fact, invisible. They could see and be seen. Just not in a mirror. She then brought up Superman's x-ray vision, asking if he could have seen the Invisible Man, and no, I'm not sure where she was going with this one, and I said yes, but now I wonder...depending on how the Invisible Man's ability worked, x-ray's may have bent around him too. Which begs the question, could Superman see Wonder Woman's invisible plane?

And...this is why I have no life. :)