Having recently watched the UK remakes of Survivors and Day of the Triffids, this is not dissimilar in a lot of ways from both of them.
Doesn’t stop it from being entertaining, though. I hope it maintains its creepy pace and doesn’t fall back on a lot of squabbling, selfishness, and panicking.
I missed the first episode because I’m not that into zombies. They’re slow-moving and not that threatening or scary. But a friend highly recommended this and said the zombies actually moved with speed, so I think I’ll catch the next one.
There is a decent, if a little sparse, 4 minute video cut of the first episode here under the highlights tab.
AMC will also be re-running the first episode Nov 5 at 10PM, Nov 6 at 2AM and Nov 7 at 2AM (all Eastern times).
If you have OnDemand be sure to check out the extra features on this show.
Like this which is totally f-ing awesome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riKsI6covPA
Heh. the friend I was watching with said at the beginning that a human could always run away because zombies don’t run. When we saw the zombies running I was like “Ha! You were wrong! Zombies can run! See!!” 
He was also convinced it was a zombie horse.
One thing I wondered, being a noob to the zombie-sphere–where were all the dogs and cats?
If you’re referring to my post, I think you ought to re-read it:
As you can see, I did not say “see the back of a little girl only to have her turn around…” And so the girl from the original “Night”, and the neighbor girl from the remake of “Dawn” are precisely what I was thinking of. You can also add the “drunk” girl from Shaun of the Dead - true she’s a teenager rather than a little girl, but you’ll be happy to know she does do the seen-from-behind, slow-turn-to-reveal-she’s-a-zombie."
In his other big scene, they pick up the hero’s radio dispatch. Even though they don’t know who it is, the partner insists they can’t risk themselves to save him. Despite this being a likely real-life reaction, this isn’t real-life it’s genre fiction. In genre fiction, people who ride horseback into danger zones to save their loved ones = good guy; people who say “we can’t put ourselves in danger just to save this one guy and who seduce the good guys’ wives” = bad guy. (Added to that, the nature of his rant about his girlfriend - and all women - being too stupid to turn off the lights gives a pretty unsubtle clue as to how he’s going to treat the Good Guy’s wife.)
OK, fair enough. You’re right there.
OK withdrawn too. It just seemed to me that his major contribution to the plot was to assist the white Good Guy - he nursed his wounds, related the necessary exposition to him, helped him get acclimated to the new world order, and generally assist him as he gets ready to ride out to Atlanta to save his wife. Added to that, the fact he looks older than the protagonist, has a grey beard and is very protective of his biological son read to me “wise, sage surrogate father” to the main character.
Added to that, someone I discussed the show with pointed out that Zombie Apocalypse movies are one of the few genres where black characters get to take central, dynamic action roles.
One nitpick (if I’m remembering this correctly):
Rick is on the horse and he sees the reflection of the helicopter in front of him. He then runs the horse forward. Since the reflection was ahead of him, shouldn’t he have turned the horse around and went the other direction?
The building (and the reflection) were on an angle - it wasn’t behind him, it was behind the building in front of him (next to the building with the reflection).
Since these zombies happily eat animals…probably consumed in the early part of the outbreak, since they’d be easier to catch than humans.
I can’t imagine how bad that whole downtown smelled. Even if the zombies don’t stink, there’s surely enough dead flesh laying everywhere to stink up the area.
Yeah, most domestic pets would be toast. Even if zombies don’t eat them alot would simply starve to death trapped in their houses or abandoned kennels. Return of the Living Dead II actually had a scene of zombies attacking a pet store. Didn’t show much, but you could hear the barks & screeching.
The opening of Day of the Dead also has an alligator wandering around being completely ignored by the zombies. I’ve always wondered if it was because they just weren’t interested in animals (Romero has shown zombies eating animals before/since), they couldn’t tell it apart from a zombie because it wasn’t warm-blooded, or just because they were afraid of it (I think a gator could hold it’s own against a zombie & don’t they prefer their meat a little ripe). 
Of course, the hilarious point of the reveal in Shaun of the Dead is that Shaun and Ed think the girl is drunk, not a zombie. At least until she tries to “kiss” Shaun.
The animated film to which Monkey Lucifer links in Post #165 brings up a point I hadn’t thought of: there’d be a lot of flies buzzing about.
If not for my zombie horse I never would’ve spent that year in zombie college. 
**
Return of the Living Dead I** had split dogs coming back to life as zombies. :eek:
I dunno, I seen a zombie fight a shark before.
Am I misremembering? I was sure they showed the actual opening scene a second time, right before he got the horse. Same exact footage of him driving up, seeing the girl, etc…
Anyone still have it on DVR to check?
Most weekdays, I walk past the doorway in which that alligator was filmed.
You’re misremembering - probably with the scene of him walking away from a gassed-out cruiser towards the house where he gets the horse. The color scheme was VERY similar and had the same atmosphere.
My guess is the opening scene with the girl slots into just before he goes to the farmhouse. It would have been nice if they had clarified that, though.
I finally watched the premiere on Hulu, and overall, I liked it (I’m about 85% done with it now) but there were some problems I have with what I’ve seen so far, coming from a “survival” type mindset…
First off, an annoyance, minor one, at the police roadblock, one Deputy admonishes another that “he better have the safety off” on his pistol, the deputy then “thumbs off” his “safety”…
thing is, he’s shooting a Glock semiauto, which HAS NO THUMB SAFETY!, a Glock’s “safety” (or safeties, as Glock claims there are three) consists of;
there is NO thumb safety on a factory standard Glock, however an aftermarket one can be fitted, but more than likely a law enforcement department would not approve the use of such a modified sidearm
When the Deputy first encounters the female “Dragger”, his reactions can be excused as it’s the first Zack he actually sees more than just the hands of, but when he goes back to finish it off, he spends far too long getting dangerously close to it before dispatching it, he should have come up behind it, in it’s blind spot, and used a non-firearm weapon (crowbar, spike/prybar/stake or other form of piercing weapon) to stop it, discharging a firearm in an unsecured zone could draw more Zacks to his location, and as his only firearm is a revolver (appears to be a Smith and Wesson revolver, either of .357 Magnum or .44 Magnum caliber) and he seems to have only the standard pouch of two speedloaders, he only has 18 rounds on his person, of which only six are in the gun
The father and son did a decent job of blocking visual access, and maintaining light and noise discipline, but they erred in holing up on the first floor, they should have holed up on the second floor, destroyed the stairs (use boards like a “drawbridge” and cut off the upper floor from the lower) and consider the first floor a loss, use it for now, but have a means of retreating to a more secured second floor if the first floor was compromised
When the deputy and the father/son went to the sherrif’s station, they should have holed up there, more easily secured, and a decent weapons cache, when they visited the armory, the deputy should have at the very least selected another revolver as backup to his primary, or perhaps switched to a high capacity semiauto pistol, all he needs for anti-Zack capability is the ability to execute an accurate headshot, for this use, a 9mm is sufficient, the “knock down power” of a .357 or .44 Mag is overkill, more recoil, more noise, slower to get back on target for a followup shot
On that armory note, all three survivors should have taken three weapons each for their use, a handgun for close-range/last ditch defense, a shotgun for short to medium range defense, and a rifle for long range Zack sniping, yes, even the kid should have all three, he’s responsible for his own defense after all
The sherrif station would be the perfect place to teach the kid marksmanship, (assuming they have a target range there) and what better way for him to start than on the zombified deputy outside the chain link fence
when the father and son return to their house, and the father goes upstairs to snipe some Zacks, I don’t remember seeing him put on hearing protection, and he appears to be firing a rifle that in all likelyhood is shooting the .308 .30 caliber cartridge, ONE shot from a .308 in an enclosed room is well over 180 decibels, and can cause permanent hearing damage, after firing off a few rounds from upstairs, he should be suffering from some form of hearing loss, possibly and likely permanent, not a good idea to compromise one of your senses in a Zombie Apocolypse, at the very least, use foam ear plugs, or perhaps electronic hearing protectors
When the deputy is out searching for supplies/survivors, he should at the very least be carrying either a shotgun or rifle as primary weapon, and rely only on his revolver as last ditch backup
going back to the sherriff station again, they should have checked for food as well as weapons, I’m sure there are some canned goods squirreled away somewhere
The survivalist camp looks interesting, a bit tactically foolish to use tents as sleeping quarters, but maybe there’s a security fence we haven’t seen yet, just seems rather shortsighted to have the only thing between you and a hungry Zack be a thin piece of rip-stop nylon…
In spite of the minor annoyances, I’ll keep watching, after all, this is only “day 1” for the deputy and he was caught off guard with no ability to prepare, being in the hospital (awakened from a coma, perhaps?)