PopHorror Let's Get Scared
We Bury The Dead isn’t a zombie movie in the way most people think of zombie movies. There’s no real interest in thrills, body counts, or clever rules of survival. Instead, it’s a quiet, heavy film about grief, obligation, and the exhausting work of moving on.
DAISY RIDLEY plays Ava, a woman combing through the aftermath of a mass-death event, searching for her missing husband. The dead don’t just stay dead, but the film isn’t interested in turning them into spectacle. They feel closer to bodies that haven’t quite had an opportunity to rest. Every encounter carries emotional weight, not adrenaline.
Ridley is on screen almost constantly, and the movie lives or dies by her performance. Thankfully, she’s excellent. Ava isn’t brave in a cinematic way. She’s worn down, numb, and pushing herself forward because stopping would mean accepting the truth. Ridley keeps everything understated—no big speeches, no emotional shorthand—and that restraint makes the character feel real.
Director Zak Hilditch keeps the camera patient and the tone bleak. Long silences are allowed to sit uncomfortably, and the wide, empty landscapes do a lot of the storytelling on their own. When violence happens, it’s quick and unpleasant, never staged for excitement. The film seems uninterested in entertaining you in the traditional sense, which is a nice change for the genre.
That approach won’t work for everyone. If you’re coming in expecting a tense or fast-paced zombie story, this will probably feel slow. The plot is simple, and the movie spends more time sitting in Ava’s head than pushing the story forward. But that’s clearly the point.
We Bury The Dead uses the undead as a backdrop to explore something more personal: what it means to keep going when the world has already ended for you. It’s a sad, restrained film that trusts its lead performance and its atmosphere more than its genre. For the right viewer, it’s quietly devastating—and it sticks with you longer than most movies in the zombie lane.
