GENRE | Daisy Ridley Survives 'We Bury the Dead'

"Why do only some of them come back?"

Vertical Entertainment

English actress Daisy Ridley stars in Australian writer/director Zak Hilditch's haunting yet unconventional zombie horror drama, We Bury the Dead. Set in Tasmania in the aftermath of a catastrophic nuclear experiment gone wrong, her Ava joins a "body retrieval unit," desperate to find her husband. She gets derailed when some of the corpses her team is tasked to bury awaken and become the living undead.

Hilditch's film switches back and forth from serious disaster drama to zombie genre flick maybe a few too many times. However, Ridley's calmly stoic performance contrasts the horrors and imagery of witnessing decomposing dead bodies. It's an impressive feature with sharp production design, editing, sound, and pacing that focuses squarely on Ava's mission to find her husband while avoiding the dangers of both the living and (un)dead.

We Bury the Dead is a terrifying minimalist thriller of small moments and performances. Its spare horror thrills focus on the human toll of grief and suffering after tragedy. Ridley anchors the film with a determined sense of motivation despite a lack of dialogue or living supporting characters outside of Mark Coles Smith and Brenton Thwaites.


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