Zak Hilditch’s We Bury the Dead crawls into the zombie genre with more than just a craving for human brains. It’s dragging grief, guilt, love, and an Australian sense of place, while somehow managing to make all that metaphorical baggage look easy. In a movie world where zombies have run, snarled, rom-com’d and been merchandised to death, Hilditch manages to find a fresh pulse by asking a deceptively simple question: what if the scariest thing about zombies wasn’t being eaten – but being left behind?
The opening is immediately disturbing. The United States inadvertently sets off an experimental electromagnetic weapon off the coast of Tasmania. Oopsie! It devastates the island. An estimated half a million people are killed instantly. The capital city of Hobart is reduced to near total ruin. There are others who survive, but with damaged neural pathways that put them somewhere between being alive and… waiting.
Clinging onto hope with white-knuckled fists, the government insists these victims are harmless. Slow. Manageable. Don’t worry about it. But we know this is a zombie movie, so that reassurance ages about as well as milk left out in the sun.
Here comes Ava, performed with remarkable restraint and emotional clarity by Daisy Ridley. By trade, she is a physical therapist, volunteering to search homes and retrieve bodies for identification and disposal. It’s grim work. Less World War Z spectacle, more Manchester by the Sea with biohazard suits, but Ridley grounds it beautifully. This isn’t a hero chasing glory; it’s a woman navigating grief with a clipboard and a deep breath, hoping purpose might keep despair at bay.
Ava’s true mission is personal. Her husband went missing from a work conference in southern Tasmania. Volunteering is her only way through the restricted zones and bureaucratic red tape. Accompanying her on the perilous journey is Clay (Brenton Thwaites, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales), who offers a grounded and quietly compassionate counterbalance to Ava’s internalized grief. Their journey, through 200 miles of quarantined territory, feels less like a road trip and more like a pilgrimage through emotional trauma.
The film’s most chilling conceit is also its most elegant. The undead don’t begin monstrous. They are calm, docile, and almost peaceful. In fact, there is one particularly impactful moment when Ava encounters one of the undead hiding inside a building. Rather than attacking, the living corpse makes extended eye contact with her. Despite the flesh falling from his face and the abhorrent teeth grinding, we almost feel sorry for him. Ugh, that teeth grinding!
However, the longer they stay ‘online,’ the more aggressive they become. Faster and deadlier. It has all the makings of some nightmarish cousin to 28 Days Later, viewed through the existential dread of The Road. Hilditch is smart enough not to let the science behind it take over the film. Nobody on the ground knows why it’s happening—and neither do we. That uncertainty becomes part of the horror.
We Bury the Dead most certainly was made on a very modest budget, but it looks and feels much more expansive. The landscape in Tasmania – green, lush, and eerily deserted – is beautifully haunting. In fact, Hilditch spends plenty of time with his camera panning across the distant landscape, often revealing large plumes of smoke and fire billowing into the sky. Special effects are used smartly and sparingly, favoring practical effects (which are brilliantly rendered) over excess, and the result is far more unsettling than any CGI-fueled gore-fest. When violence erupts, it feels earned. And it hurts!
A supporting turn by Mark Coles Smith – as a rogue military first responder who befriends Ava, fleshes out a world that feels lived-in and painfully human. But, make no mistake, this is Ridley's film. And she delivers perhaps her most nuanced performance to date. She communicates a world of emotion with but a look, a pause, and a steadying breath. The movie works because she does.
We Bury the Dead doesn’t just raise the dead. It digs up all the feelings we worked so hard to cover up. This is a thinking, feeling zombie movie that stays with you long after the credits roll; proof positive there’s still plenty of life, and afterlife, left in this genre. This one is less about surviving an apocalypse and more about surviving what comes after. How’s that for something different?
MPAA Rating: PG-13.
Runtime: 94 mins
Director: Zak Hilditch
Writer: Zak Hilditch
Cast: Daisy Ridley; Brenton Thwaites; Mark Coles Smith
Genre: Horror | Thriller
Tagline: Volunteers Needed
Memorable Movie Quote: "if you find your husband, I hope you understand what that could mean."
Distributor: Vertical Entertainment
Official Site:
Release Date: January 2, 2025
DVD/Blu-ray Release Date:
Synopsis: After a catastrophic military disaster, the dead don't just rise - they hunt. Ava searches for her missing husband, but what she finds is far more terrifying.
