One of the best zombie movies ever...(minor spoilers)

Rating: 9/10 (25 March 2011)

I love zombie movies. I'm a big horror/scary movie fan and, as a rule, prefer suspenseful and creepy to gory and bloody, but zombie movies just blow me away for some reason. Ever since the original NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD which gave me nightmares as a kid, I just can't get enough of the genre.
This is by far one of the best I've ever seen. The mixture of creepiness, spine-tingling "gotcha" moments, and prevalent humor is absolutely perfect. Even the typical asshole-redeems-himself-in-the-end is done in a fresh and believable way. His transformation is gradual so we buy it completely as true.
The characters are truly fleshed out, and you get to know them all and care about them, which makes you kind of fight right along side them.
I think one of the most disturbing parts to me is near the end before they leave the mall. Up till now, all through most of the movie, the cop and the gun-shop owner across the street have been communicating from their respective rooftops via binoculars and dry-wipe boards. First they play a game where the cop writes to the gun shop guy, "Do Burt Reynolds..." and you look down in the crowd of zombies lurching about the street and, sure enough, there's a zombie who's the spitting image of Burt. BLAM, the gun shop guy blows him away.
Later, the group at the mall prepare a couple of large vehicles to be as defensible as possible so they can smash their way through the zombies and possibly find safety somewhere. They intend to go by the gun shop first and rescue the owner. But, something happens and he is bitten. The cop radios him through a walkie talkie he managed to get over to him to ask if he's okay. You see it coming. You know it's coming. You KNOW it. But, when the cop sees the gun guy climb up to the roof and begin writing on the dry wipe board, and the cop puts the binoculars to his eyes, well...it still breaks my heart to see it and it still makes the little hairs on my arms stand on end.
Great screenplay, great acting, fantastic cinematography, impeccable directing. Probably the most entertaining couple of hours you'll have watching a scary movie.