My Thoughts on "We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️"

 

(This is the poster for We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️.) 

 

 

Well, it's October now, so that means I have to do some more horror themed or horror adjacent reviews and posts this month, starting with We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️. Well, actually I started out with Beware Boiúna, which you can go read right now, it beat We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️ by a day. It's kind of crazy that I saw both of these movies within a day of each other, but if you read my Beware Boiúna review, you'll know that I didn't intend to see it yesterday. Like, I didn't make plans to see it yesterday ahead of time. It just happened that way because of personal things going on in our lives back at home. We needed the distraction. But I'm glad I saw it because I really enjoyed it. It felt nice to watch a decent creature features in theaters after so long. I don't even remember the last time I saw a creature feature like that in theaters. I enjoyed a whole helluva lot more than this movie that's for sure, but I'm getting ahead of myself. 

 

Now, this was a movie I did want to see in theaters when it came out in the United States 🇺🇸 back in January, but I never got the chance to. I also wanted to see Shelter (2026), but I didn't get the chance to see that either. I ended up seeing Greenland 2: Migration 🇬🇱 as my one January movie this year, which I also reviewed already if you're interested. So I ended up having to wait until this movie came out on Blu-Ray 💿, and I bought it at Walmart back in May, along with some other stuff, and I've just been sitting on it all this time. I did intend on reviewing it while I was working on my Cowboy Bebop (1998) review, which I finally finished last month and you can also go read right now (go read it please, I put a lot of work into it, and I don't want any of it go to waste), like some time in August, but once I got in the groove, I just decided to focus solely on that, even if it did slow down my output, and it meant that I only had one post for August (the Godzilla: Unleashed review). If the review had taken longer, I would've taken a break to review this, but luckily it didn't, and I managed to finish this review before the end of September, and it meant that I had enough time to write one more post ☝️ afterwards, the post about the (old) news about the upcoming Evangelion series written by Drakengard/Nier creator, Yoko Taro. So, that wasn't necessary, and I was able to save this review for October. 

 

 

 

(This is a photo that I had taken back in May of the We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️ Blu-Ray 💿 that I bought along with a TV show and a video game that I bought that same month. As you can see, I also bought Super Mario Galaxy + Super Mario Galaxy 2 for the Switch 1 since I own a Switch 1 and not a Switch 2, and Duck Dodgers the Complete Series Blu-Ray 💿.) 

 

 

 

The main reasons why I was even interested in watching this movie, despite how below the radar it is, is that it was co-produced by Grant Sputore, an Australian filmmaker 🇦🇺 who previously directed a movie for Netflix called I Am Mother. But in general, he's more of a producer than a director or a writer, he's produced a lot more movies than he's actually directed or written, including this one. But, I first became aware of him when it was announced that he going to direct the next MonsterVerse movie, Godzilla x Kong: Supernova since Adam Wingard was unavailable due to being committed to directing Onslaught (2026), which I also want to see and review this month some time. In fact, I first discovered this movie by looking at his list of credits on his Wikipedia page. And also because it has Daisy Ridley in it, and I think she's pretty hot 😍. She doesn't get enough credit for how attractive she truly is because she was in Star Wars, and all those right-wing chuds hated on her, and pretty bullied her off of social media, just because they didn't like her character Rey. But Daisy Ridley is a truly beautiful woman ♀︎ 🥰, and this movie does highlight how beautiful she truly is at a very different points. 

 

So, I figured a zombie movie 🧟‍♂️ starring Daisy Ridley would be a great way to get a sense of Grant Sputore and his work before Supernova comes out next year. See if this guy ♂︎'s really up to the task of directing the next major film installment of the MonsterVerse, and just up to the task of directing a big budget blockbuster in general. Even though the early synopsis for this movie made no indication that it was a zombie movie 🧟‍♂️, refusing to even use the word "zombie 🧟‍♂️," but I'll get into that later. It was the trailers that really showed that this was a zombie movie 🧟‍♂️, and why I put the zombie emoji 🧟‍♂️ next to the title every time I type it out. And I became a lot more interested than I was before. I wouldn't say that I'm a zombie movie 🧟‍♂️ connoisseur, but I've watched a few here and there. I reviewed one on this blog before. Well technically, it wasn't for this blog specifically, it was actually written for DeviantART and I just reposted it here, but you get what I mean. Army of the Dead 🧟‍♂️🎰, a movie that I still enjoy despite how much hate it gets. 

 

I've had a few more to my list of things to review. I know what the genre's all about, and what people come to expect from these movies, and I get some entertainment out of them. I've even played some zombie video games 🧟‍♂️ like Left 4 Dead 🧟‍♂️, Left 4 Dead 2 🧟‍♂️, and Resident Evil 6, which also did a collaboration with Left 4 Dead 2 🧟‍♂️, featuring some of the characters from that game as DLC for the Mercenaries mode. I don't count Resident Evil 4 and 5 because they don't technically have zombies 🧟‍♂️ in them. But now, after watching the movie, I can't say that I got a particularly good sense of Grant Sputore's work and his capabilities as a filmmaker. Especially he didn't write it or directed it, he just produced it, but, I get into that soon. 

 

So, what is this movie actually about? Well, it's about this American woman 🇺🇸♀︎ named Ava Newman who travels to Tasmania to try to retrieve her husband, Mitch's dead body after a catastrophic accident took place there involving an "accidental" deployment of an experimental weapon by the US military 🇺🇸. The initial blast 💥 killed over 500,000 people (pretty much half a million people) and absolutely obliterated the capital city of Hobart. But even those who were far away from the blast 💥 weren't spared since the weapon produced an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) which emitted across the entire island and caused everyone else on the island to drop dead instantly from where they stood or sat, like, they just died doing what they were doing at the moment of the weapon's deployment due to neural failure. 

 

So, pretty much everyone that was on the island at the time of the weapon's deployment is dead, and the Australian military 🇦🇺 is there to clean it up, and they've hired volunteers to help with body identification and body retrieval. Mainly those from the mainland, but also those from other countries who had loved ones ❤️ in Tasmania at the time of the accident. Though, the US military 🇺🇸 is also involved, and is also helping out with the clean up, even though they were the ones who caused the accident in the first place. Something that the Australians 🇦🇺 resent them for. A lot of the Australians 🇦🇺 volunteering in Tasmania don't actually want the Americans 🇺🇸 there, and the few American volunteers 🇺🇸 there get snide remarks made at them. As if they had anything to do with the catastrophic accident that their military had caused. 

 

 

 

 

 (This is a picture from We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️, showing Ava sitting next to a bunch of dead bodies, contemplating her life choices.) 

 

 

 

 

 

The reason why Mitch was there when the accident happened is that he was there for a business trip in the town of Woodbridge, which is a real town in Tasmania, though good luck trying to look it up because there are several other towns around the world that are also called Woodbridge. Ava's there to volunteer for the body retrieval unit, so she can retrieve his body, but she gets put into a body identification unit instead. However, for some reason, some of the people who died from the EMP burst came back as zombies 🧟‍♂️, and both the Australian and the US militaries 🇦🇺🇺🇸 are being incredibly hush-hush and suspicious about them. Like, they insist that they're slow and docile and they won't attack anyone, and yet, they insist on shooting every single one that the volunteers come across. Knowing that some of the dead people came back as zombies 🧟‍♂️ and believing that her husband could be one of them, Ava becomes even more motivated to find him. So, she ditches her body ID unit, and travels down to the island to get to Woodbridge, along another renegade volunteer, Clay. Along the way, they encounter zombies 🧟‍♂️ and other hazards, including a crazed Australian soldier 🇦🇺 named Riley, who kidnaps Ava, and forces her to dress up as his dead pregnant wife 🤰 and dance with him. 

 

That whole scene where Riley is holding Ava captive in his house (his old farm house) and she's trying to escape, and she ultimately has to kill him reminded me a lot of the section in War of the Worlds (2005) where Ray and Rachel are hiding out in Ogilvy's basement and are essentially being held captive by him as he becomes increasingly unstable and a danger to both of them. Which I know is something from the original War of the Worlds novel 📖, but we're going with the 2005 movie since that's one of the few film adaptations to actually feature that character and that section of the story. You know, like Ogilvy, Riley starts out seeming friendly, helpful, and sane, but once Ava's in his house, his true insanity starts to reveal itself until the mask completely falls off and he shows his true color as an insane person. Who clearly lost his mind after wife died. Even down to the fact that Riley has unreliable information about the zombies 🧟‍♂️, just as Ogilvy did about the aliens 👽 in War of the Worlds (2005). Like, he insists that the people who came back as zombies 🧟‍♂️ had unfinished business, which is why he thinks his wife's a zombie 🧟‍♀️ and why he's keeping her body inside of a bedroom in the house. But if that's the case, then why didn't Mitch come back? He clearly had unfinished business regarding his marriage with Ava. 

 

When Ava does escape Riley (or rather kill him), and does make it to Woodbridge, she finds that Mitch did not come back as a zombie 🧟‍♂️. He was not one of the lucky, or unlucky few who did, and he's just dead. So she doesn't get the satisfaction of confronting him about their failing marriage. While their marriage does seem happy and healthy at first, from the first flashback that we're shown at the very beginning of the movie, but over the course of the movie, we're shown a lot more flashbacks to their marriage, and it's through these flashbacks that we learn their marriage was not as happy or healthy as it appeared at first. In fact, their marriage was pretty much in shambles by the time Mitch left to Tasmania and the accident took place due to Ava's inability to get pregnant 🤰 and have a baby, and their disagreements over how to deal with that. Ava wanted to get IVF, but he didn't want her to, wanting her to just have a baby naturally, but nothing was happening, and it just spiraled from there. To the point where the two of them cheated on each other, and their marriage left off on this note of wanting to talk to each other about their adultery, but not getting the chance to due to Mitch dying in the accident caused by the US military 🇺🇸 that killed everyone in Tasmania. 

 

 

 

 

(This is another picture from We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️, showing Ava holding an axe 🪓.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

So, there's this whole recurring theme throughout the movie of motherhood, and wanting to have a baby, and that's we get the absolutely terrible ending of this movie, where Riley's dead wife is revealed to actually be a zombie 🧟‍♀️, and Ava and Clay spot her on the road after she had seemingly given birth. They go to investigate, and they find this baby lying on some kind of altar, indicated that the pregnant zombie 🧟‍♀️ had indeed given birth. The movie doesn't make it clear whether this baby is a normal baby or a zombie baby, but regardless, Ava decides to take it in her own. Holding it in her arms, cooing, and trying to calm it down like a mother would with her own baby. Like, she's getting the chance to be the mother she never got to be with her own husband. That ending just didn't do it for me because of the unanswered questions and the implications of her just adopting this random baby that was born from a zombie 🧟‍♀️. A zombie 🧟‍♀️ who was the undead wife of a crazed soldier who kidnapped her, forced to her to dress up as his wife, and then tried to kill her when she refused. I wouldn't take that baby in if I was her, but what do I know? I'm a guy ♂︎ and I'm not a parent either, and I'm particularly eager to become one, at least not yet. 

 

Watching the movie I now understand why this movie didn't make much of an impact, and why it was quickly forgotten about after it was released in both Australia 🇦🇺 and the US 🇺🇸, because this movie is pretty mediocre. It's not very good, in fact, it's pretty underwhelming. I'm glad I didn't see this in theaters, otherwise I've felt really disappointed and like I wasted a whole bunch of money 💵. I was sitting there, waiting for this movie to finally get exciting, I was with it, but that just never happened. This movie is just kind of dull, and it never truly revs up and gets going, or adds up to anything particularly satisfying. First of, it should go without saying that this is not a traditional zombie movie 🧟‍♂️. So, don't go into it expecting a lot of action or zombie killing 🧟‍♂️ because there just isn't that much. 

 

There aren't even that many zombies 🧟‍♂️, and most of the zombies 🧟‍♂️ aren't even a real threat. Most of them just stand around staring at people. They do sort of imply that some of them did retain some cognitive abilities, like they're cognizant, and have some awareness, but that really doesn't go anywhere. They most they do with that with is the scene where Ava helps this one zombie 🧟‍♂️ bury his dead family, and then shoots him to put out of his misery, instead of continuing to be exist as the living dead. There only a few scenes where the zombies 🧟‍♂️ do try to attack people and where the main characters have to kill them, and they're very spread apart. We don't even see anyone get bitten and turn into a zombie 🧟‍♂️, meaning the zombies 🧟‍♂️ aren't contagious and there's no danger of them spreading outside the island and causing a zombie apocalypse 🧟‍♂️. Which I suppose makes sense since the zombies 🧟‍♂️ in this movie are not the result of a virus 🦠, or bacteria, or parasite, or some other kind of pathogen. 

 

This is more of a drama about a woman ♀︎ trying to get to her dead husband, and coming to terms with the fact that their marriage was a failure and she was unable to have kids. But then getting the chance to live out the fantasy of being a mother by taking in a baby born from a zombie 🧟‍♀️. Ever since Dawn of the Dead 🧟‍♂️ (2004), people just can't get enough of pregnant zombies 🧟‍♀️, can they? Not even Zack Snyder himself since he also included a pregnant zombie 🧟‍♀️ in Army of the Dead 🧟‍♂️🎰. I guess we've all just been conditioned to expect a zombie movie 🧟‍♂️ to be an action horror film, and have lots of zombie killing 🧟‍♂️ (as in people killing zombies 🧟‍♂️ instead of zombies 🧟‍♂️ killing people, though we get that too), and lots of blood 🩸 and lots of gore. 

 

The zombie genre 🧟‍♂️ is one of those things that's been done to death (no pun intended), and it's largely been the same exact way for decades. So I can understand wanting to try something different with the zombie genre 🧟‍♂️, but this just wasn't it. Even as a drama, it's not that engaging, at least not to me it wasn't. I just didn't care that much about Ava and her plight. I was mildly invested in her journey to find her husband, if only because I was hoping that we'd get some kind of action climax involving her fighting off all kinds of zombies 🧟‍♂️, or at least trying to escape from them or hide them, but that never happens. The zombies 🧟‍♂️ become even less of a factor after that. Nothing comes of her going to Woodbridge, and finding her dead husband's corpse, except for that terrible ending I just laid out. I can see why the plot synopsis to the movie prior to its American release 🇺🇸 refused to use the word "zombie 🧟‍♂️." They didn't want to give people the expectation of seeing lots of zombie action 🧟‍♂️ and lots of zombie killing 🧟‍♂️. Also, they never actually say the word "zombie 🧟‍♂️" in this whole movie at all. 

 

They also never explain where Clay disappeared to after their first encounter with Riley at the gas station/convenience store ⛽️, and Riley took Clay out back to have a "chat" with him while Ava waited in the bathroom 🚽. Like, they set up the explanation, like Clay asks Ava how she got away from Riley, and then she tells him, "You first," and then we just never get an answer. You can't have one of your main character for a good portion and then have him reappear all of a sudden with no explanation. I was expecting him to show up to save Ava from Riley at the barn, when he's chasing after her, trying to kill her, but no, she just kills Riley on her own without Clay's help. Like now that I think about it, Clay is kind of useless for most of the movie, and his character just wasn't really needed. They could've easily removed that character during the writing process, and the movie would've been no different. In fact it would've been better because Ava would've been fully on her own, with no one accompanying her. It would've fully been her journey without someone budding in. 

 

They don't bother explaining why the EMP caused by the experimental weapon "accidentally" deployed by the US military 🇺🇸 caused some of the victims to become zombies 🧟‍♂️ and not all of them, other than it caused neural failure, or what factors lead to someone becoming a zombie 🧟‍♂️ and others just staying dead. It seems like it's just random who became a zombie 🧟‍♂️ and who didn't. Riley insisted that it's only people with unfinished business who came back as zombies 🧟‍♂️, but that's obviously not true. Sure, anecdotally it was true with his wife and that one random zombie 🧟‍♂️ that Ava met next to the RV, but it wasn't true for Mitch, or anyone else on the island who might've had unfinished business. Riley was just saying that because he wants that to be true about his own wife. He refuses to believe that she's dead, and if she isn't dead and she is a zombie 🧟‍♀️, then it must be for a reason, and that reason is to give birth to their son. Which she does, only for Ava to take their baby as her own 😒. 

 

They also don't say how much the US and Australian militaries 🇺🇸🇦🇺 actually know about the zombies 🧟‍♂️. They must know something, otherwise they wouldn't have this policy of shooting all zombies 🧟‍♂️ on sight the moment one is spotted, and they wouldn't keep reassuring the volunteers that the zombies 🧟‍♂️ are slow and docile, when that's only true to a certain point. They do sort of establish that the zombies 🧟‍♂️ do become more aggressive the longer they stay alive, or undead, whatever, but how long it actually takes for them to get to that point? It's not clear. I also feel like they don't really make it clear if the accident truly was an accident or not. From how shady both militaries were acting about this whole thing, and how they seem to know about the zombies 🧟‍♂️, it sort of makes it seem like there was going to be some big reveal that the accident that destroyed Tasmania wasn't really an accident at all, and it was at least partially intentional 🤨. 

 

Like, the US military 🇺🇸 knew that the weapon would create zombies 🧟‍♂️, and they perhaps hoping to see what extent it did, and they could just write it off an accident when all was said and done. Or maybe they knew the weapon would create zombies 🧟‍♂️ that they hope they could use as weapons, but the accident was deploying it off the coast of Tasmania, and they actually meant to test it somewhere else. But such a reveal is never made, and we're not sure how much both militaries know about the zombies 🧟‍♂️, and whether the accident was truly an accident or not. But, you know what? That doesn't really bother me that much. I don't answers for every little thing. I would've accepted not having the answers to all the questions and mysteries that I laid out if the movie were actually entertaining, but it's not really. It's actually pretty dull.

 

There are some positives about this movie, there are some things that I liked about it. I thought the cinematography was pretty good, the movie looks gorgeous, even if some of the CGI didn't, and the acting was good for what's worth. Daisy Ridley gave a pretty good performance, even if her character doesn't talk that much throughout the movie and mostly just sits around silently, or walking around silently. She's a woman ♀︎ of few words in this movie. I still don't understand why made her character American 🇺🇸, other than to isolate her from the Australians 🇦🇺, make her seem unwelcome and much more like an outsider. But still, I don't understand the logic of casting a British actress 🇬🇧 in an Australian production 🇦🇺 and having her play an American 🇺🇸. They could've easily just had her be Australian 🇦🇺 in the movie, or better yet, use her real life nationality and have her be British 🇬🇧, and the movie would've been better because of it. So yeah, unfortunately, Daisy Ridley didn't get to use her real accent in this movie, which is a shame because I like her real accent. Star Wars is probably the only thing I've seen her in where she got to use her real accent. 

 

But, the actor who played Riley, Mark Coles Smith, did a really good job. You totally buy him as this crazed soldier who lost his mind due to his pregnant wife 🤰's death, and wants to live out a fantasy in which she is still alive, and they still have their son. He looked really familiar to me, but I don't know why he hasn't been in anything else that I recognize, although he is in Beast of War, the Australian World War II shark movie 🇦🇺🦈, which I also plan on reviewing on my blog some time. A fun detail I learned about him while looking at his Wikipedia page is that he's Aboriginal, and he became the first indigenous Australian actor 🇦🇺 to win a Gold Logie Award, which is the Australian equivalent to the Emmy Award 🇦🇺. 

 

The other actors in the movie however, I didn't recognize since all of them are Australians 🇦🇺 and New Zealanders 🇳🇿 who haven't acted in anything outside of Australia 🇦🇺 or New Zealand 🇳🇿, and none of them particularly stand out to me. There's at least one other British actor 🇬🇧 ☝️ in this besides Daisy Ridley, Kym Jackson, but I don't recognize her either, though apparently she was in the movie, Snitch with Dwayne Johnson. And then she was in the 2002 live action Scooby-Doo movie, the one written by James Gunn, where Scrappy-Doo is the villain, and that was her first movie role. So maybe if I watch either of those two movies again, I'll recognize her. I also liked some of the songs they featured in the movie. I downloaded two of them ✌️, "Pursuit of Happiness (Nightmare) [feat. MGMT & Ratatat]" by Kid Cudi and "Hertz" by Amyl and The Sniffers, which is an actual Australian band 🇦🇺. You can totally tell the song's Australian 🇦🇺 when you listen to it because of the strong accent of the lead singer, Amy Taylor. 

 

Also the Blu-Ray 💿 for the movie wasn’t that good either, it was one of the most barebones Blu-Rays 💿 I’ve ever seen. It didn’t even have a Scene Selection, what was that about? It’s like the people who were in charge of the Blu-Ray release 💿 (and presumably DVD release 📀 as well) were like, “Well hardly anyone cared about this movie in the first place, so why should we put any effort into this Blu-Ray release 💿?” So there’s no special features about the making of this movie that I can watch to learn more about Zak Hilditch thought process while writing and directing this, well as hearing Grant Sputore’s thought process while making bankrolling this. 

 

Because a producer’s job on a movie is providing funding and resources to the production, and depending on how much influence they exert over the film, guide the film in certain direction. Some filmmakers who choose to be producers or even executive producers as well as directors and writers, so that they’ll have total creative control over all their movies. Because if you’re just a director and a writer on a movie, and not a producer or executive producer, you don’t truly have creative control over that movie, and you don’t have as much of say in the direction of that movie unless you are also a producer of executive producer. At least, that’s my understanding of what a producer or executive producer does on a movie. What they should do in an ideal situation. 

 

If you want to watch a better zombie movie 🧟‍♂️ that actually delivers the goods, then watch Army of the Dead 🧟‍♂️🎰. Don't believe any of the hate that movie gets, it's actually pretty good. Even Patrick Willems think so, go watch this video to see for yourself. Or Zack Snyder's previous zombie movie 🧟‍♂️ before Army, Dawn of the Dead 🧟‍♂️ (2004), or the first Zombieland 🧟‍♂️. Or watch Train to Busan 🚊, or any of the Korean zombie movies 🇰🇷🧟‍♂️ that have been made since Train to Busan 🚊. Like Colony (2026), that's another movie I wanted to check out this year, but I'm not sure I'll actually get the chance to. It already came in theaters in August, so I missed it. It doesn't have a physical release, so far, and the only place where it's streaming is on Amazon Prime, but it's not a movie you can watch for free if you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you have to pay for it separately, and it costs $9.99 💵 to rent it either in SD or HD, and $14.99 💵 to buy it either in SD or HD. 

 

But, even if I didn't care for this movie, I'm still not worried about the quality of Godzilla x Kong: Supernova. Like I said, Grant Sputore didn't direct this, or write it, he just produced it, with four other people. This movie has five producers in total. If Supernova was being directed by Zak Hilditch, that'd be a different story, but he's not, Grant Sputore is. And let's just say, for the sake of argument that Grant Sputore did have a lot of creative control over this movie, and did have a hand in the writing process and helped come with the story, even if Zak Hilditch is the only created writer on the movie (he's credited as the writer and director), I'm still not worried because Adam Wingard directed Death Note (2017) before he directed Godzilla vs. Kong, and you know what? Godzilla vs. Kong still turned out awesome despite Death Note (2017) and people not liking it. I haven't seen it, so I can't say if it's any good or not. In fact, he made two awesome MonsterVerse movies ✌️, since he also directed Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, a few years after, making him the first director to direct two consecutive films in the MonsterVerse. Even if a filmmaker's previous work isn't all that great, they still turn in a great MonsterVerse installment. I imagine Grant Sputore will be no different, even I have less of grasp of him as a director now, after watching We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️, than I did before. 

 

 

(This is yet another picture from We Bury the Dead 🧟‍♂️, showing Ava after she had just killed a zombie 🧟‍♂️ at the resort in Woodbridge where she found her husband's dead body. This is also the same image that used as the thumbnail for both trailers on YouTube.)