We Bury the Dead
Director: Zak Hilditch
Writer: Zak Hilditch
Cast: Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Mark Coles Smith, Matt Whelan, Chloe Hurst
Part of: SLASH Filmfestival
Seen on: 20.9.2025

Plot:
After a weapons test kills almost the entire population of Tasmania, including all animals, Ava (Daisy Ridley) volunteers to go there to help with the clean-up. She doesn’t do it just out oft he goodness of her heart, she hopes to find her husband Mitch (Matt Whelan) who was there on a work trip. Especially since there are rumors that some of the affected people wake up again. But Ava’s mission is easier said than done.

We Bury the Dead offers us a fresh take on zombies which I appreciated, though it is more focused on the emotional impact. It generally gets a lot of things right, but ultimately I didn’t fall in love with it. But I liked it a lot.

We Bury the Dead gives us a new way of creating zombies – a way that the characters in the movie don’t really understand yet. The audience never learns any more than they do, so we just know that these zombies here are not contagious, and not all the dead come back to (un)life. Especially the former shifts the inherent zombie allegory of the inevitability of death to the inevitability of saying good-bye, of having to let things go.

It is thus not much of a surprise that the movie is more interested in the intimacy and emotions that come with having to say good-bye and it does so with some excellent character work. Ava is trying desperately to hold on to her relationship (a relationship that was far from perfect as we slowly learn). Her partner in crime, so to speak, Clay (Brenton Thwaites) desperately tries to get relationships back that he lost. And along the way they encounter Riley (Mark Coles Smith) who shows how twisted things can become when you can’t let go.

It is an interesting set-up and Hilditch shows much understnading for his characters and the ways they relate to each other. I also want to say a special thank you that he lets Ava and Clay be perfectly platonic, despite being hot and young and hetero. It was very important for the story, I felt. That being said, the ending did turn a little too sweet, taking the tack of „new things arise when you can let go of the old“ a bit too far.

Apart from that, though, it is a film that hits the right emotional beats, keeps you invested, gives you good character work and an interesting set-up. So, even if I didn’t absolutely lvoe it, I enjoyed it and was happy to watch it.

Summarizing: go for it.