We Bury The Dead – Movie Review (4/5)

WE BURY THE DEAD is a new post-apocalyptic zombie thriller starring Daisy Ridley. I expected it to be good, but it was even better. It plays out like a dystopian horror-drama, and I am realizing more and more that I have a huge soft spot for those. You’ll definitely want to check out this one. Read our full We Bury The Dead movie review here!

WE BURY THE DEAD is a zombie horror-thriller set in the direct aftermath of a terrible accident. Maybe that’s why this feels like one of the most eerily realistic and relatable post-apocalyptic zombie movies in recent times. If you’re a fan of dystopian horror with a strong psychological thriller driver, where zombies are very much a part of the story as well, then this is for you.

Daisy Ridley leads a very interesting cast in this zombie story set in Australia (or Tasmania, to be precise), and she’s perfectly cast in the role. The runtime is just 94 minutes, so the story never lingers too long at any one part. If it did, it would also just become way too depressing, as this is a world that is hurting in extreme ways.

Continue reading our We Bury The Dead movie review below. Find it on Digital in the US from February 3, 2026 (and February 2 in the UK).

A deliciously creepy zombie drama

With We Bury the Dead, we meet Ava (Daisy Ridley) on a mission to find her husband. She arrives in Australia from the U.S., in the hopes of finding him alive. He was practically at ground zero for a catastrophic military experiment. Now, to find him, she joins a “body retrieval unit”.

The accidental experiment was performed by the US military, so obviously, some Australians are less than thrilled with having the American Ava among them. However, everyone is hurting, as they need to retrieve hundreds of thousands of bodies, so they need all the help they can get.

BEWARE OF THE WE BURY THE DEAD AUDIO

The teeth gnashing of the zombies made my skull itch… It’s brilliant but also absolutely maddening!

Also, there’s a persistent rumor that some of the dead are waking back up. Getting back “online,” as it were. However, another part of this rumor also states that these “people” are not themselves. As a result, the dead need to be identified and buried very quickly. Hence, the title of We Bury the Dead.

For Ava, the need to find her husbands has to do with how their last conversations happened. She is desperate to get to him and set things right, but before she can get there, she has to cross areas where no one is going… yet!

Daisy Ridley is making all the right choices

I am so thrilled with the choices Daisy Ridley is making when it comes to roles. Between We Bury the Dead and a movie like Magpie, she is absolutely winning the character lottery. Of course, one could also argue that the filmmakers are just extremely lucky that they get to cast her in these movies, but both things can be true. And they clearly are!

I adored Daisy Ridley as Rey in the Star Wars movies, so I was eagerly waiting to see how she would continue her career. Fortunately, she’s making wonderful choices and continues to take on complex characters, which often means she’s in genre movies.

Along with Daisy Ridley (Star Wars: The Last Jedi), we get a wonderful supporting cast featuring the talent of Brenton Thwaites (Ghosts of War), Matt Whelan (The Tank), and Mark Coles Smith (Beast of War). All of them play extremely important roles in how Daisy Ridley’s character, Ava, evolves.

And it shouldn’t go unnoticed that the character of Ava would typically be a male character, but this is very much about a woman going on a mission that few understand, and even fewer want to accept.

Watch We Bury the Dead on Digital

We Bury the Dead is written and directed by Zak Hilditch (Rattlesnake), who has created a brilliant zombie horror-thriller with a psychological driver and the most unnerving sound effects. Of course, the sound effects are thanks to the brilliance of everyone in the sound department, but I still have to mention it as an amazing part of the movie.

Yes, even if the sound of those teeth gnashing and cracking was driving me crazy. If I am to compare it to another grossly uncomfortable horror moment, I can only go directly to the kitchen scene from Bring Her Back. I certainly had the same physical reaction, wanting to cover both my eyes and ears as my skin crawled from the sound and imagery.

Getting back to the writer-director Zak Hilditch, he previously wrote and directed the adaptation of Stephen King’s 1922 for Netflix. I was not crazy about it, but fortunately, I have also watched Zak Hilditch’s 2013 dystopian sci-fi thriller These Finals Hours, which is much more along the lines of We Bury the Dead. If you like this movie, then you’ll like the other. And vice versa, obviously.

We Bury the Dead is available on Digital on January 2 and on DVD, Blu-ray on January 19 in the UK. In the US, the digital release is January 3, 2026.

Details

Director: Zak Hilditch
Writer: Zak Hilditch
Cast: Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Matt Whelan, Mark Coles Smith