We Bury the Dead
Review by Mark Woodring
The zombie genre is a well-traveled bit of film real estate, most recently with the resurgence of the 28 Days Later franchise with 2025’s 28 Years Later (and its sequel, due to hit theaters in just a few weeks).
A film has to do some heavy lifting in order to make a mark on the audience in this genre…
Cue Daisy Ridley’s foray into the genre with a more human look at those who find themselves in the new world with We Bury the Dead.
**NOTE: You can read Mark’s review below, then listen as he and Ryan discuss the film further. Remember, you can listen to all our discussions of this and every other movie directly over on ACAST. Stay tuned.**
94 Minutes, Rated R
Written by Zak Hilditch
Directed by Zak Hilditch
Synopsis:
After a catastrophic military disaster, the dead don’t just rise – they hunt. The military insists they are harmless and slow-moving, offering hope to grieving families. But when Ava enters a quarantine zone searching for her missing husband, she uncovers the horrifying truth: the undead are growing more violent, more relentless, and more dangerous with every passing hour.
In We Bury the Dead, instead of a global apocalypse, we get a situation which stems from a more realistic scenario, in which the test of a new piece of technology results in a massive area of devastation in Tasmania. Not physical destruction, but rather an electromagnetic burst so powerful that it not only destroys technology but overwhelms the electrical impulses in the human body, killing everyone in it’s wake.
But death, as we learn, is not necessarily the end, as reports begin to surface of individuals “re-animating” and becoming violent.
Enter Daisy Ridley’s Ava, who volunteers for “body recovery” duty in order to search for her husband, who was in the area of effect at a work conference.
We Bury the Dead is an outlier, with minimal interactions between the few “zombies” and humans, instead focusing on Ava’s search and how humanity might grieve and react to such a disaster.
With the help of her body recovery partner, Ava travels far into the exclusion zone, where fires still rage and recovery hasn’t even thought of beginning yet, encountering a variety of humans and “non-survivors” along the way.
We slowly learn about her life before and why she is driven to undertake such a journey.
My favorite parts of any post-apocalyptic film are those which deal with how humanity responds in it efforts to deal with the new world in which it finds itself.
In We Bury the Dead, we are given a lingering look at a world forever scarred by a trauma which extends far beyond its immediate area of effect, and Ridley gives a very effective yet subdued performance as a woman in search of sense and closure in what is unquestionably a mad situation.
The closure she gets isn’t necessarily the kind she would have liked, but the film earns it while simultaneously avoiding some questionable choices that might pop up in more mainstream (read: Hollywood) films.
The cinematography is great, with the Tasmanian landscapes dominating the screen, both with and without horrific scenes of destruction occupying the space.
Write/director Zak Hilditch crafts a story which haunts the audience as it haunts Ava, never becoming melodramatic or overbearing in its story beats or performances.
I am left to wonder why this one was released in January when an earlier (late 2025) or later (Spring/Summer 2026) release date might have given it some separation from 28 Years Later: The Bone Temple, which will surely suck up all the genre oxygen upon its release.
Which is a shame, because We Bury the Dead is a very fine movie, one which deserves its own spotlight, not to be relegated to the chorus line of films with fill out the theatrical calendar every year.
Check it out when you can. It’s absolutely worth your time.
We Bury the Dead shuffles into theaters Friday, January 2, and stars Daisy Ridley, Brendon Thwaites, and Mark Coles Smith.
And remember, if the BEST thing you can say about a movie is that it’s “visually stunning,” then they’ve done something wrong.
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