We Bury the Dead Resurrects Compassion Among the Undead

We Bury the Dead

★ ★ ★

We Bury the Dead is a zombie movie that gives an over-explored genre a touch of originality.

Theaters and televisions have been flickering with dangerous undead creatures for decades. Some great, some terrible—not much worth remembering in between. Mostly, these zombies are brain-dead and driven by an appetite for human flesh. This film takes a refreshing approach, bringing a glimmer of humanity to the zombie side. A military EMP goes off on the Australian island of Tasmania, killing several people. Some of them “come back online,” as the film says, and reanimate. They start off docile, moving slowly if at all.

Ava (Daisy Ridley) is on a flight to a staging area near Tasmania in search of her husband Mitch (Matt Whelan) who was there for a conference when the EMP struck. She’s convinced he’s still alive and volunteers to help clear the dead from houses and buildings and identify any that might have returned. She’s partnered with another volunteer named Clay (Brenton Thwaites), a partnership that doesn’t start off on the best footing but eventually settles into an unstable trust.

Daisy Ridley as Ava
© 2026 Vertical

Ava sees a man in his garage who has come back online. He doesn’t move, but he isn’t dormant. Ava believes there’s more behind his eyes, something beyond the typical mindless undead. But the military’s orders are to kill the reanimated, so any claim to the man’s humanity is snuffed out.

She convinces Clay to take her to the resort where her husband was staying and they make the dangerous journey through the island. They eventually meet a military commando named Riley (Mark Coles Smith) who has some dark secrets and sinister agendas of his own.

Despite its refreshing premise, the film ultimately focuses more on the road trip journey to flesh out Ava’s feelings of guilt and remorse. The zombies are an afterthought, and though some prove to be very fast and quite dangerous, we rarely feel Ava is in any real peril.

It’s not uncommon for zombie films to frame their stories with themes of guilt, emotionally tormenting its characters. But the film fails to capitalize on its most intriguing concept—can the undead really regain their humanity? It’s an intriguing, hopeful olive branch in a damned world.

Daisy Ridley as Ava
© 2026 Vertical

Ridley’s portrayal of Ava is emotionally charged and spot on, creating a strong, sympathetic character we can root for. We want her to reach her husband, survive this wasteland and find some measure of happiness.

Had the film lingered less on emotional trauma and leaned more into the redemption of the undead, it would have grounded Ava’s core struggle. To redeem herself—and, if her husband is alive, her marriage. If a zombie can come back, certainly there’s hope for us all. But the film abandons its strongest theme when the story needs it most.

It’s a slower-paced, character-driven zombie film. While the film misses opportunities to fully capitalize on its brilliant setup, it delivers on themes of grief and regret. If only those two elements came online together, this would be a defining film in the apocalypse of zombie films.