Of course they kill the daughter in this and not the baby.

I think it worked well though. The young girl did a great job.

I was inclined to agree before I saw the movie, but I think the choice had more to do with how they changed the ending. They needed the zombie to be a little more capable than the baby (can't see the baby dragging his mother to the burial site and burying her) and they obviously wanted that moment at the end where the baby is helpless in the car as his whole resurrected zombie family comes for him. I can't really say I like this ending better, but it was an interesting way to make it different from the original.

I just thought it was hilarious how the movie tried to fake us out with the baby's and Judd's deaths, when they already spoiled both of those moments in the trailer. If you've seen the trailer and the original movie, you've basically already seen this movie apart from the last 5 minutes.

I have to agree with the OP, it makes the film a lot less disturbing

Nah. Its all about subverting expectations. Audiences are likely to know enough about the original movie that the truck hits the baby. Thats why they set it up that the truck is about to hit him and then the dad swoops in to save him last second only to show its the girl that got hit.

Also its kinda obvious the boy is going to be murdered off screen at the end whereas in the original (and the book too I think) the girl is the only family member to survive.

They did it to give audiences a different experience.

They even failed to show the baby being killed in the very end and only implied it for people who paid attention at the beginning.

All the balls seems to have moved to TV shows now.

I thought they picked the girl this time around simply because she was older and could obviously do quite a bit more in her dead role than the youngster playing Gage. Compare what she did in this movie to the what the younger actor who played Gage in the original film was capable of doing.

this movie is much better in atmosphere and acting. The girl acted well. Ofcourse i cant expect baby child to act well but he looked cute and naughty like someone said here not scary at all! Babies may scare some, but only some babies and this one definitely didn't.

I'm not sure about that. The end of the movie was pretty dark, maybe darker than the original movie. It wasn't looking good for little Gage. LOL.

Not that I liked this one more, but I think maybe they just wanted to change the story up somewhat.