{"id":13698,"date":"2026-01-02T13:07:13","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T18:07:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=13698"},"modified":"2026-01-17T20:58:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T01:58:07","slug":"we-bury-the-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2026\/01\/02\/we-bury-the-dead\/","title":{"rendered":"We Bury the Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"We Bury the Dead<\/strong> (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vertical\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 94 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violent content, gore, language, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Zak Hilditch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Zak Hilditch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Clark\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Steve Annis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 2, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Mark Coles Smith, Matt Whelan, Chloe Hurst, Kym Jackson, Dan Paris, Deanna Cooney.<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019ve been hearing a lot of hate directed at We Bury the Dead <\/strong>since last night\u2019s AMC Scream Unseen. I get it. It\u2019s more of a survival drama than a zombie horror movie. It centers on a young woman looking for her husband in the aftermath of a man-made catastrophe. She runs into a few \u201czombies\u201d along the way. She fights them off when they attack, if they attack. Audiences went in expecting something like George A. Romero; it\u2019s actually more like The Road. They complained it was too slow and boring. I didn\u2019t think that at all. I found it very interesting.<\/p>\n

\u00a0A military experiment gone wrong simultaneously ends all life on the island of Tasmania. That is, save for some victims who\u2019ve mysteriously come back to life. Naturally, the soldiers sent to maintain order and oversee clean-up have orders to kill on sight. All Ava (Ridley, Cleaner) wants is to locate her husband who was there on business when the s*** hit the fan. She volunteers for body retrieval with the intention of looking for her missing husband. When told to stay where she is, she escapes with the help of Clay (Thwaites, Gods of Egypt). Together, they embark on the perilous 200-mile journey to hubby\u2019s last known location.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Along the way, they encounter Riley (Smith, Last Cab to Darwin), a soldier looking for somebody to fill the void left by the death of his pregnant wife (if she\u2019s actually dead). He, of course, sets his sights on Ava. She needs to get away from this psycho ASAP.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The problem with We Bury the Dead<\/strong> isn\u2019t the movie (which is good not great), but how it\u2019s being marketed. Vertical is selling it as a horror movie, a zombie invasion flick, and it\u2019s not that. It\u2019s a human drama with a little more gravitas than the average zombie horror. It\u2019s closer in spirit to 28 Days Later in how writer-director Zak Hilditch adds emotional weight to the formula. It\u2019s not a perfect balance with the jump-scares, but it imbues the film with a palpable sense of humanity. You don\u2019t often find that in a zombie invasion movie. This is all well and good, but how do you sell a movie like this to mainstream audiences looking for a frightful good time just after the holidays?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Daisy Ridley, who many still think of as Rey from the recent Star Wars movies (2015-19), delivers a solid performance as Ava. She\u2019s really coming into her own as a lead actress. I thought she did a great job in last year\u2019s Die Hard knock-off Cleaner. Here, she digs a little deeper to play a woman looking for her husband. She has unfinished business with him. They didn\u2019t part on good terms and there are things that need to be said. She desperately hopes that he\u2019s the one of the ones who didn\u2019t \u201cdie\u201d in the catastrophic event. Thwaites is pretty good in an underwritten role, but We Bury the Dead<\/strong> definitely belongs to Daisy. It\u2019s her movie!<\/p>\n

\u00a0Even if We Bury the Dead<\/strong> isn\u2019t wholly a horror movie, it\u2019s still pretty visceral. The zombies have a habit of violently grinding their teeth to the point where they crack. You could feel the collective \u201cYEESH!\u201d in the theater. I haven\u2019t been this disturbed by a sound since the wooden counter chewing scenes in last year\u2019s Bring Her Back. You also get sad moments like when Ava helps one of the undead bury his dead family.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the end, We Bury the Dead<\/strong> is more serious than one would expect from a zombie movie. I\u2019d even say it\u2019s somber. The low-key cinematography by Steve Annis illustrates this perfectly. The whole film has a sad hue hanging over it. I think it works in the movie\u2019s favor. Hilditch is going for something different here and he mostly succeeds. He doesn\u2019t exactly reinvent the wheel with We Bury the Dead<\/strong>, but he shows how it could be built differently to achieve a different end.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We Bury the Dead (2026)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Vertical\/Horror-Thriller\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 94 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (strong violent content, gore, language, brief drug use)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Zak Hilditch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Zak Hilditch\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Clark\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Steve Annis\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: January 2, 2026 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Mark Coles Smith, Matt Whelan, Chloe Hurst, Kym Jackson, Dan Paris, Deanna Cooney. Rating: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":13720,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/We-Bury-the-Dead-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13698"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13721,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13698\/revisions\/13721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}