Directed By Zak Hilditch

Starring – Daisy Ridley, Brenton Thwaites, Mark Coles Smith

The Plot – After a catastrophic military disaster, the dead don’t just rise : they hunt. The military insists they are harmless and slow-moving, offering hope to grieving families. But when Ava (Ridley) enters a quarantine zone searching for her missing husband (Matt Whelin), she uncovers the horrifying truth: the undead are growing more violent, more relentless, and more dangerous with every passing hour.

Rated R for strong violent content, gore, adult language and brief drug use.

We Bury The Dead | Official Trailer (HD) | Vertical

POSITIVES

Between the movie’s inability to find a distributing studio for the better part of two years, and then a typically disappointing studio like Vertical attaching their name to it, there was a lot of personal reservations about the film, especially considering its another in the overcrowded landfill of 21st century zombie movies, but Hilditch and company breathe life into such an ages old concept, allowing for some compelling originality that effortlessly drives the narrative throughout 90 minutes of meaningful storytelling. Meaningful in the ways that the violence and terrifying emphasis of zombie attacks really take a backseat to material that appraises sentimentality and remorseful longing for its characters, particularly Ava, who is constantly reminded of a past memory of her missing husband as the matters in the current day narrative shape such an unpredictability for her journey. Because of such, not only does the editing manage simultaneous rendering of two respective timelines, executed brilliantly with some defining color pallets used to immediately deviate between them, but also the script continuously zeroes in on the stunning parallels between the living and dead, with the latter’s reanimation serving as a result of the unfinished business that each are unable to avoid in a life that unceremoniously came to a bitter end. Speaking of those deviations, I love that the primary conflict is established as a means of being man-made, instead of something undefined from outer space, particularly with a smaller scope and scale for the geographically affected areas that feels refreshingly authentic for how the rest of the world would respond to such unforeseen devastation. It’s certainly not the first zombie film to attach such a blame, but it does cleverly feed into the ideal of man being responsible for his own eventual annihilation, with those few scattered volunteers left to scavenge the ruins of the various households where time has seemed to stop in the blink of an eye, and with what life is ultimately left for those who are still alive. The zombies themselves surprisingly don’t receive a lot of screentime in the consistency of the structure, perhaps as a means of being limited by the production’s minimized budget, but it does render some solid make-up and prosthetics designs that boldly illustrate the immediate decay of those caught in the crossfire, with one particular aspect of the movie’s production being immaculately executed among the fray. I’m talking about the nerve-shattering nagging of the movie’s sound mixing, in which the undead chatter their teeth relentlessly in ways that made me wince each time it and the correspondingly tight shot compositions offer minimalized evasion for audiences squirming in their seats. It’s the one element of this production that will inevitably linger with me, long after I’ve seen it, and considering so many zombie films typically concern themselves with the visuals of a decomposing corpse, Hilditch and company appraise value to the inescapable beats that go bump in the night, utilizing an unmistakable essence in influence that immediately captures your attention each time the dead are within an earshot of our established characters. Just as integral as the zombie designs are the balance of human counterpart performances, which effortlessly invest us into Ava and Thwaites’ Clay, despite the expositional backstory paid to their characters requiring patience in the ways the storytelling meticulously unravels them. Ridley continues to execute seamlessly outside of her comfort zone, this time tapping into the world of horror, and as a result we get a vulnerably defined performance that allows the actress ample time and opportunity to flesh out the sensitivities of her character, with Ridley articulating a vast variety of complex emotions that challenge her facial acting in ways that capture all of the anger, regret, fear, and disappointment of the memories that now linger within her like ghosts. Brenton Thwaites turn feels like the polar opposite, in that he gets to exude A limitless abundance of personality, in ways that make him feel like the very definition of an Australian bloke, with the ruggedly mysterious and unapologetically honest sides of Thwaites deliveries earnestly appraising some much-needed humor for the movie in meticulous doses. The chemistry between these two effortlessly made for a compelling dynamic, without the movie thankfully needing to unnecessarily establish them as emerging love interests, and though one boneheaded decision threatens to derail this momentum, I found the time spent between them to be the air that continuously fills the movie’s lungs, allowing those affected by slow-burn pacing an appeasing element to get them by.

NEGATIVES

More things than just the zombies bite about “We Bury the Dead”, as not every decision from Hilditch is a satisfying one, particularly one involving the disappointing departing of one meaningful character to the movie’s foundation, during its second act. While it’s immediately evident that the intention is to paint a more vulnerably isolated environment for the character we’re left to focus on, it robs the movie of its evolving and expanding momentum, in favor of a domestic dispute that made this feel more like a psychological thriller, and less like a post-apocalyptic zombie movie, featuring the slowest half hour of the movie that tested the patience of even someone like me, who appreciates the meticulous crafting of an environment over cheap startling jump scares, the likes of which this movie thankfully has none. On top of this, Hilditch definitely feels far superior as a director than he does as a screenwriter, with some of his previously established rules not exactly lining up seamlessly to the ways the characters frequently overstep them. Such an example pertains to the military disaster itself, with the airborne explosion killing 500,000 people as a result of them ingesting toxins that immediately shut their brains off. When the movie begins, our protagonists are wearing masks, yet not exactly covering their eyes, and considering we just recently went through a worldwide pandemic, in which people were taught to utilize a mask and goggles to interact around other possibly sick people, it’s crazy that the film overlooks such glaring inconsistencies, especially with the characters completely abandoning such precautions the longer the film persists. So I’m left to believe that Ava and Clay are able to somehow breathe the very same air that killed these people, without even the slightest symptom? It doesn’t add up. On top of this, Hilditch’s ending for the movie didn’t surmise the very satisfaction needed to justify the extent of its journey, with the movie drowning on for ten minutes beyond what was needed, in order to evoke a deeper message of spiritualty that symbolizes all that was lost could be found again, optimistically. While I accurately read the intention, it feels like the movie tacks on some scenes away from Ava’s inescapable regret, in order to surmise uplifting feelings to an audience who have been through the proverbial ringer with drama and terrifying world, with everything from forced humor to outlooking optimism used to flourish hope in a world that honestly isn’t even that hopeless, when you consider the aforementioned scope of the affected environment. Finally, the movie’s R-rating is a bit of a strange one, considering how the cinematography and editing go directly out of their way to shield the audience from having to indulge in the buckets of blood of a zombie movie, and while I understand the intention of Hilditch’s direction is to find meaning in the characters over their actions, the visuals feel like network edits of an originally brutal cut, with very little carnage candy for the horror hounds to sink their teeth into, and nothing that even comes close to challenging a PG-13 rating beyond Clay’s vitriolic vulgarity, whenever he’s had a bout or two with the bottle.

OVERALL
“We Bury the Dead” is a moodily manifested 90-minute zombie thriller about the sting of separation anxiety, particularly the unfinished business of both sides, living or dead, that keeps the heart beating in those most isolated of moments. While the film is elevated especially by magnetically radiant performances from Daisy Ridley and Brenton Thwaites, carving out an inseparable dynamic, as well as meaningful deviations to an outdated concept, it’s occasionally bogged down by the distance of its conflicting journey and unsatisfying resolution threatening to take the bite out of the material, but ultimately surmising another game-changing installment to the subgenre that will walk so a better film can run.

My Grade: 6.6 or C+