We Bury the Dead

While the zombie movie refuses to die, it's certainly not thriving. In the years since the onset of COVID-19, only a handful of films featuring the archetypal monster in one form or another get released every year, and vanishingly few cause a stir. It should come as no surprise that audiences cannot get excited about a genre most often rooted in a widespread outbreak of disease, and whose most enduring images frequently feature empty streets and overflowing hospitals. The only exceptions have been legacy franchises, namely Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, Zach Snyder's Army of the Dead, and the ongoing 28 Years Later trilogy (whose next entry is due out in just over a week).

So it was a bold choice for Zak Hilditch to pen an original zombie movie with few big names. Granted, landing one of the most recognizable actresses on the planet as your top-billed star may help to offset people's general aversion to them. Additionally, We Bury the Dead goes a slightly different route for its inciting incident. A ship belonging to the United States accidentally detonated an experimental weapon off the coast of Tasmania, unleashing an EMP that instantly wiped out the half a million people who populate the island. Only...some of them have been waking up. The military and civilian volunteers tasked with cleaning up the bodies have yet to uncover a pattern to who wakes up and why, but the soldiers are insistent they be immediately killed. Because while they begin docile and vacant despite their horribly mangled flesh, the longer they're up and about, the more violent they become.

Read my full review on Pop Culture Maniacs.