Indie Zombies and Moral Dread: Watching "We Bury the Dead" (2026)
- Dan Brooks
- 2 minutes ago
- 4 min read
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 enters a quarantine zone searching for her missing husband, she uncovers the horrifying truth: the undead are growing more violent, more relentless, and more dangerous with every passing hour.
Some zombie movies kick the door in.
Others shuffle politely, cough a little, and ask if they can talk to you about the nature of humanity.
We Bury the Dead very much belongs to the second category.
I watched this one at home, alone, in my basement, lights off, popcorn and candy in arm’s reach - basically the optimal environment for anything involving quarantine zones and reanimated neighbors. I went in expecting a fairly standard undead romp and instead got something a little creepier, a little stranger, a little slower… and, to its credit, at least interested in being something more than a carbon copy of every other apocalypse-on-a-budget entry clogging the streaming menus.
If I were texting a buddy afterward, the verdict would’ve been:
“A little creepy, a little weird, a little slow, but an interesting story.”
Which is the cinematic equivalent of saying, “I didn’t hate it, and I’m still thinking about it,” and that counts for something.
The setup is classic end-times anxiety: military disaster, quarantine zones, official assurances that everything is under control - always comforting words right before the music goes ominous - and a hero heading straight into danger looking for someone she loves. That’s fertile ground for dread, and the movie does a respectable job building tension. It doesn’t sprint. It creeps. Sometimes literally.
There are a few moments here that work extremely well, especially when the film leans into atmosphere instead of spectacle. Dimly lit rooms. Long pauses where nothing is happening and you’re already mad about it because you know something will. A couple of scenes hit with that old-school, stomach-tightening horror vibe where your brain whispers, “I don’t like this,” five seconds before your eyes confirm that, yes, you were absolutely right not to like this.
One particular encounter involving a soldier and his pregnant wife? Let’s just say it earned its jump scare badge and then stuck around in my head longer than I wanted while I was reaching for more popcorn.
Performance-wise, the cast holds things together nicely. Daisy Ridley anchors the film with a grounded, determined energy - you buy that she’d walk into something this dangerous armed with nothing but stubbornness and unanswered questions. Brenton Thwaites and Mark Coles Smith fill out the landscape with the kind of weary, damaged presence that apocalypse movies practically require by law.
And that soldier I mentioned earlier? Properly unsettling. Not cartoonish, not mustache-twirling - just the kind of quietly menacing that makes you sit up straighter on your couch and consider locking doors you are very aware lead only to your laundry room.
Where "We Bury the Dead" starts to wobble a little is in its pacing.
This is not a run-and-gun zombie spectacle. It’s slower, more contemplative, and sometimes a touch too patient for its own good. I kept wishing for a few more tense confrontations, a few more spikes in momentum - moments where the movie grabbed me by the collar instead of gently tapping my shoulder and asking me to ponder moral ambiguity.
There’s also a sense that the story could’ve used a bit more muscle on its bones. The ideas are interesting - especially the questions about what’s really left inside the undead, whether something human is still flickering in there or if the lights are fully out - but the narrative doesn’t always dig as deep as it seems to want to. It circles those thoughts, gestures toward them, then moves on before really twisting the knife.
And while we’re chatting… do we really need so much vomiting in movies now?
I feel like somewhere in Hollywood there’s a memo that goes out every quarter: Add more gagging for realism.
Look, I get it. The apocalypse is gross. I accept that premise. But I don’t need repeated reminders. I’m already eating candy in a dark basement while watching people flee the undead. I’m fragile enough.
To the film’s credit, it mostly avoids leaning on tired zombie clichés. It isn’t obsessed with out-goring everything that came before, and it doesn’t drown itself in winking genre references. It wants to be slightly more thoughtful, slightly more human, slightly more unsettling in a quiet way rather than a loud one.
That ambition is admirable - even when the execution doesn’t fully stick the landing.
By the time the credits rolled, I found myself a little let down. Not angry. Not disappointed in the “why did I waste two hours of my life” sense. Just wishing the ending had packed a bit more punch after such a deliberate buildup. I wanted one more big swing, one more moment that made me lean back and go, Okay… that was worth the slow burn.
Instead, I got something solid, moody, occasionally creepy, and slightly underpowered.
Which brings us to who should actually watch this.
If you’re looking for a massive, effects-heavy zombie blockbuster with nonstop carnage and military hardware doing donuts through ruined cities… this is not that movie.
If you like slower, indie-leaning horror that focuses on atmosphere, character, and uncomfortable ideas more than body counts? You’ll probably get more out of this than I did.
Me? I appreciated what it was trying to do. I liked the tension, the creepy moments, and the attempt to remix the genre just enough to feel different. I just wanted the story to hit harder and the pace to sharpen its teeth a bit more.
Final Score: 6.0 / 10
A few genuinely eerie scenes, an interesting twist on zombie mythology, and strong atmosphere - held back by thin storytelling and a pace that sometimes drags when it should be tightening the screws.
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