The WWZ movie is, shockingly, not terrible, and I’d even go so far as to call it good. It bears little resemblance to the book by this point, but the book isn’t perfect. So while it’s dropped some of the good things, it’s also dropped plenty of the bad. The zombies are runners (Olympic runners at that) but they follow simple, consistent rules of behavior that can believably result in some of the more complex things we see from them, the people act like people and get lots of little characterization moments, plot points that are raised are followed up on, and the resolution is foreshadowed repeatedly throughout movie. You really wouldn’t know that it’s been rewritten a dozen or two times. Also, people are decent and work together, which is always nice to see.
It really isn’t gory either – that was probably a poor decision that angered many, but it’s also the only reason I could watch it in the theater in the first place, so I don’t mind. The couple minor jump scares it has were more than enough to terrorize me.