Watchable zombies

I'm not a fan of the zombie genre in movies, due to their routine gruesomeness.   In gaming, so far as I can tell from previews I have seen on TV, I object to their use as a "legitimate" target for headshots and bloodletting on an enormous scale.   That said, I did get the DayZ mod for my son on the basis that it looked like it was not too gruesome in its graphics, and besides,  the point of the game was mostly to simply sneak around and avoid getting chased by zombies.   (On most servers, you had to spend a fair bit of time simply trying to find weapons before you could risk being spotted by a zombie.)   The best thing about it was the empty creepiness, and enjoyed playing some sessions with my son.  Now that it is being developed into a proper stand alone game, it looks like it is being made more gruesome.  Annoying.

This is all by way of background to explaining that I was not at all sure about my son seeing World War Z last year.  (I am, it seems at times, about the only father in Australia who actually takes care as to the level of violence in movies or games a son is being exposed to.)

But he's turned 14, and I took a punt and bought the DVD and we watched it last night.

It is surprisingly good.

As with all zombie movies, it has a silly premise (10 seconds for a virus or whatever it is to zombie-fy a bitten person?  come on..) but the best thing about it is that it is probably the least gruesomely violent zombie movie ever made.

It is, in many respects, a lot like the old DayZ - a zombie experience that is more defined by the creepiness, the chase, and the sudden surprise, rather than being a gore-fest.  Of course there is shooting and bodies hurling all over the place, but virtually no blood.  A lot of significant violence acts are not directly shown on screen at all.

The end sequence also features perhaps the best zombie acting I have ever seen.

Brad Pitt is fine, and he also was one of the producers.   I assume he has to be given credit for deciding that a zombie movie could be good without the gore.

Given that I liked him in The Tree of Life recently too, I am having to reconsider his contribution to movies.