We Bury the Dead (2024)

Two minutes. That's all it took to derail what had been a genuinely promising piece of zombie horror. I'll get to that, because it's the thing I can't stop thinking about, but let's start with what We Bury the Dead gets right, because it gets quite a lot right.

The central conceit is legitimately clever. An electromagnetic weapon that reanimates only some of the dead, with the risen growing more volatile and dangerous the longer they're walking around. It's a fresh angle in a genre that's been strip-mined for decades, and it opens up genuinely interesting questions. Who comes back? Why not everyone? What does that uncertainty do to people who are grieving, who are waiting, who are hoping? The film clearly understands that the best zombie stories are never really about the zombies, and for most of its runtime it leans into that idea pretty effectively.

The practical effects are a real highlight. The undead here look genuinely unsettling, physical and decayed in a way that feels tactile and real. There's none of that over-polished, weightless CGI horror that's become such a crutch in modern genre filmmaking. These creatures feel like a genuine threat, and the film's restrained setting and atmospheric dread keep the tension simmering throughout. It reminded me, in the best possible way, of what horror can do when it trusts mood over spectacle.

The performances, though, are a bit of a mixed bag. Daisy Ridley commits physically to the role, and I respect the effort. But there's an emotional flatness to the performance that becomes a real problem when the story asks her to carry the weight of grief and trauma. She's the anchor the film depends on, and she doesn't quite hold it together. The supporting cast actually fares better, which makes the imbalance all the more frustrating. It's not a disaster, but it's the kind of lead performance that keeps pulling you slightly out of the story at exactly the moments you need to be fully inside it. I've watched Ridley in Star Wars: The Force Awakens and thought there was real charisma there, so I wonder if this is partly a character-writing issue as much as anything else.

And then there's the ending.

I won't spoil it, but I want to be clear: what happens in the final two minutes of this film is genuinely baffling. Not in a thought-provoking, ambiguous way. In a way that directly contradicts the internal logic the film spent its entire runtime building. George A. Romero was right about this: you have to establish rules in horror and you have to stick to them. The moment you break your own rules for the sake of a last-minute jolt, you've lost the audience's trust, and you've cheapened everything that came before. That's exactly what happens here. What had been a thoughtful, atmospheric piece of genre filmmaking tips over into something that feels not just unearned but actively silly. I sat there genuinely annoyed, which is a shame, because I'd been largely on board right up until that point. It's the kind of ending that makes you want to recommend the film with the caveat of stopping it two minutes early, and that's a deeply unsatisfying place to land.

If you're a fan of zombie horror and you're willing to look past a flat lead performance and a finale that falls apart, there's enough here to make it worth your time. The ideas are good, the effects are excellent, and the atmosphere is well-constructed. If you're after something in a similar vein that really sticks the landing, I'd point you towards When Evil Lurks, which commits to its own horrible logic all the way through and is deeply unsettling for it.

Three stars. A genuinely original horror concept that earns your attention and then, right at the end, does its level best to lose it.

Rating: ★★★  | Year: 2024  | Watched: 2026-04-13

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Where to watch

Watch in the UK
Stream: Disney Plus · Sky Go · Now TV Cinema
Buy: Apple TV Store · Rakuten TV · Amazon Video · Sky Store
Physical: Amazon UK · Zavvi

Watch in the US
Stream: Hulu
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Buy: Amazon Video · Apple TV Store · Google Play Movies · YouTube
Physical: Amazon US

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