'We Bury the Dead' Review
- Michael Petrey
- Jan 2
- 3 min read
Release Date: 01/02/26 [Cinemas]
Genre: Horror. Thriller.
MPAA: Rated R.
Distributor: Vertical Entertainment.
The Verdict: A Maybe
We Bury the Dead is a bummer of a road trip movie, but succeeds in its focus on the importance of closure and maintaining dignity and humanity even as the world begins to crumble. It’s less of a zombie movie and more of a fractured love story about loss, acceptance and imperfect closure.
In the country of Tasmania a chemical explosion wipes out most of the population, leaving most of its population deceased. In some but not all cases, the dead mysteriously rise with unclear motives, but a recurring theory throughout is a need to take care of ‘unfinished business.’ Daisy Ridley plays Ava, a married woman in search of her husband who was on a work assignment in Tasmania where the chemical blast wiped out most of the population. She volunteers as relief aid, helping to collect the dead from various locations where they were spontaneously wiped out.
While she seems to have come to terms with the high likelihood of her husband being gone, she desperately holds onto a glimmer of hope that even if he was killed by the blast, he may still return with even the slightest glimmer of his formal self.
The movie presents an initial loving relationship between two newlyweds who soon encounter implied challenges conceiving a child and unfaithfulness. Ava befriends a fellow relief worker with a motorcycle and a potential drug habit, who offers to help her on her mission traveling 200 miles south to the facility where her husband was last known to be at. Along the way they encounter many dead, with some reanimated but with unclear purpose. The first appearances of the undead are characterized by grotesque visuals which are effectively creepy but the most disturbing zombie highlight to me was the eardrum-piercing sound of their grinding teeth. Any gore involving teeth or nails is always cringe inducing and We Bury the Dead presses these buttons emphatically. The ‘zombies’ are not overly aggressive (for the most part) standing and staring blankly but with a semblance of their former humanity, which adds to the mystery element and contemplation of what is really going on in their minds post-death.
Daisy Ridley gives a solid performance as a preemptively grieving widower who is struggling with not only the loss of her husband, but also the loss of the opportunity to mend things that had gone awry in their marriage. As she makes her way through the chemical wasteland of Tasmania, she runs into a soldier with similar grief who offers to help Ava but has more sinister, warped intentions in mind for Ava than first presented.
We Bury the Dead is not a fast-paced zombie thrill ride. It’s more of a relationship post-mortem and learning to cope with grief and loose ends that will never tighten. This splice of genres may cause the movie to struggle finding its audience. I don’t see there being much cross over between Dawn of the Dead and Marriage Story viewers, but perhaps I am wrong. I enjoyed aspects of the film and some of the cinematography, especially some scenic aerial shots (one shot of an overhead beach depicting a Viking-esque funeral sticks out vibrantly) are quite lovely and let the film breathe through a broader environmental lens at times, while other scenes are close-quartered and claustrophobic, which raises tension where it counts. I don’t see We Bury the Dead holding much value on rewatch, but as a one time watch, contemplative of the meaning in love and relationships even in the worst of times, it works…and it doesn’t hurt to sprinkle a few zombies in and an axe wielding protagonist for good measure ,because why not?
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