I love zombie movies because when they are done right, they get at so many different aspects of being human, but when they are done wrong … they are often just a chaotic mess that is at least still entertaining and exciting from time to time. So, when the new film We Bury the Dead came out starring Daisy Ridley I was all in to check it out, and this film did some things I wasn’t expecting. Does that mean it worked or that it was good? Well, let’s talk about it because I think this one might be interesting to people who aren’t necessarily into the horror genre because it does subvert expectations a bit.

You can read the review below or watch the video review on YouTube:

We Bury The Dead has a very simple premise. Ava’s husband Mitch has gone to an offsite work retreat in southern Tasmania and while he’s there a pulse bomb is accidentally detonated instantly zapping the brain functions of all living creatures within hundreds of miles, which effects the entire island.

Ava travels from her home in New York to help with the clean up efforts, gathering bodies to bury, and alerting the military when she and her teammate find someone who has “woken up.” Ava’s desperate to get down to southern Tasmania to see if Mitch might be one of the people who wakes up, but waking up isn’t necessarily all it’s cracked up to be and getting there isn’t as easy as it seems.

Changing the Rules in A Silent World

Some of the things that the production gets right in this film are atmospheric. Imagine an island where every living thing is dead from the people to the birds, dogs, and animals on land and in the affected area of the sea. There is a devastating silence and stillness to the world, and they do capture that really well.

So, when you do hear a sound it’s startling and when you see something move, it creates a natural feeling jump scare because nothing should be moving. That is a complete contrast to most zombie films that we get because those other films are either viral or fungal, and the infection largely only spreads through humans.

In We Bury the Dead, every living thing was erased … at least until some of them wake up … but it’s that change in lore that makes this movie interesting because it raises a lot of new questions. However, those new questions that the premise raises don’t always get answered because answering them isn’t the core conflict for this story. I think that is going to annoy some people who really love to dig into what the pulse bomb was, why it killed people, and why some of them woke up. These things do get addressed to a degree, but hard-core zombie fans are hungry for these kinds of details, and this film chooses to focus on Ava’s emotional story rather than addressing the science of the catastrophe.

Ava’s Story – Character Setup

So, here’s the thing with Ava’s story, it’s a broken love story and a suspenseful tragedy wrapped up in a horror film that chooses to use elements of horror to heighten the dramatic conflict behind Ava’s need to find her husband. Even as she makes some poor decisions and strikes out against orders into the countryside to look for Mitch, we can see that it’s not just hopeless, it’s also useless. The people who wake are not the same, but because of her desperation she sees something in their awareness that gives her hope.

We spend a lot of time in flashbacks with Ava and Mitch, which helps us to feel that part of the love story and the problems that come up in their marriage, and it’s that pattern of present day scenes interspersed with memories of the past that help us to understand why Ava’s bad decisions and her near senseless belief that there is hope isn’t totally unfounded. She’s not altogether wrong, but she’s not right either.

That’s where the premise of this story deviates from many other zombie films and it’s where the story gets interesting because that’s when we start thinking differently about what a zombie could be in this movie.

Ava is a much stronger character than I gave her credit for when watching the trailer. I walked into this film thinking this was going to be more of a traditional zombie film and Daisy Ridley was going to rise up at the badass zombie killer in a fight or die conflict that basically mirrors 28 Days Later. She doesn’t, and because they didn’t turn her into a Mary Sue zombie killer and they gave her a more ordinary appearance, she actually stepped out of the Star Wars shadow that playing Rey had cast on her for me. Ava is just an ordinary woman who is trying to find her husband, and regardless of whether she finds him, that part of the story does resonate on a tragic romantic level.

Zombie Action vs Zombie Aftermath

So, I think one of the biggest departures in this film is the amount of action versus that amount of drama and the exploration of the unknown. In zombie films, even the bad ones, we get hordes of flesh eaters hot on the trail of their next human meal. However, that isn’t the set up for We Bury The Dead. These zombies wake and they are slow. Some of them are confused, some of them are agitated, and all of them no longer look quite human in their appearance. This all makes for some really great moment of exploration and artistic cinematography.

The landscape scenes and the close up encounters all use light and perspective well, creating a similar effect to many of the shots in the 28 Days Later, and it did feel like the story leaned a little into a few of the story choices from that film, which robbed this film of the originality that could have elevated a few of the conflicts that Ava faces. Again, because the world is so quiet, with everything being dead, the jump scares created by the smallest of sounds from rustling leaves to the crackling of a footstep or the sudden movement of a dead person feels natural.

Where the Story Breaks

We Bury the Dead does take a few moments to explore the nature of humanity and that uncanny value that exists between the living and the dead who wake. Are they still human in the way we think of humanity? Are they merely brain damaged and can that damage be repaired? And how does the brain chemistry of a person who wakes change over time as well as why one person would wake up and another doesn’t.

Following on that thought (but without spoilers), there is one issue that really bugged me about the science related to the waking or not waking of the dead. Specifically, if they wake up, how much brain function do they really have when considered “dead” and what about after they wake? We only see the loosest science in the film, which left me wanting (or needing) more information to ground these humans as “zombies?” I would have liked the film to think more critically about the fact that the people who woke up did not all wake up at the same time. There was no rhyme or reason for why or when they would wake. This also led to a number of characters who had various different reasons for why someone would or wouldn’t wake, and while that did add nuance and uncertainty that I loved, it also left so much gray areas in the story that it may feel a bit incomplete for some people who like more resolution.

The one question that nobody ever asked is why the animals didn’t wake up. As far as I can tell, the animals never woke in any part of the story, which doesn’t seem quite right from a logical perspective. I think this could be a good opening for a sequel because if there is no medical reason for why only humans woke then is it something spiritual? Or were animals just waking up differently? And more if there is no timeline on when a person might wake up, why were they burying the dead who hadn’t yet awoken because there could literally be hundreds or thousands of people who wake up in the giant mass graves and then have to dig themselves out of that horror show in the future.

The fact that they eliminate those who wake and bury those who haven’t yet woken doesn’t really make logical sense, but it is a governmental decision. So, I guess that makes it fairly realistic because governments often make decisions that don’t always make sense.

Is It Ticket Worthy?

So, is We Bury the Dead worth the price of the ticket? I think overall the answer is yes because there is a lot to this film that is going to resonate with people whether they enjoy horror or not because it’s not just a horror film. It’s produced by an independent international studio, which is why I think we don’t see as many of the standard Hollywood story choices, and I also think that’s why this film feels a little different. It doesn’t sit in the genre in the same way, and I think that is going to give it a much wider appeal to general audiences. However, the marketing isn’t picking up on this, and I think there is a good chance that a lot of people may end up skipping this film.

So, what do you think? Have you seen We Bury the Dead? Are you planning to see it or planning to check it out since it’s not quite a traditional horror setup? Let me know what you think! I’ve left out so many things that I wanted to talk about to avoid important spoilers. So, let’s talk about them in the comments below.

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