The last time zombies dominated the horror genre, George W. Bush was in the White House. Since then, the braindead hordes have retreated — never disappearing completely, of course, but showing up in reduced numbers compared to their heyday of “Shaun of the Dead” and the “28 Days Later” series. Now, with climate change accelerating and fascism on the rise, the mood has turned post-apocalyptic once again. 

Multiple films at this year’s SXSW engage with this ambient feeling of existential paranoia (see also: “It Ends,” premiering in the Midnighters section). The Australian entry “We Bury the Dead” takes the straightforward zombie-apocalypse route, with a little bit of “elevated” thematics mixed in. And given how many variations on both themes already exist, it’s impressive that writer/director Zak Hilditch has located some fresh angles on the concept. 

Chief among them are the disarming flashes of humanity that still exist inside of Hilditch’s undead, which surface occasionally, like the brief moments of clarity sometimes seen in dementia patients. This makes it a little more difficult to blow their heads into jelly with a shotgun, upping the emotional stakes for our protagonist Ava (Daisy Ridley) as she searches for her missing husband amid a catastrophe that’s turned the island of Tasmania into an uninhabitable wasteland. 

Even if he didn’t survive, he might still be in there somewhere. That’s what keeps Ava going as she and fellow body-retrieval specialist Clay (Brenton Thwaites) take off across the island as volunteers for the Australian Defense Force. The first half of “We Bury the Dead” serves as a sort of anti-tourism ad, littering the southern Australian state — usually sold as a vacation destination full of pristine beaches and stunning mountain views — with piles of dead humans and animals. 

Clay is a wild card who seems to be doing this for the gore-soaked fun of it, shouting colorful Aussie profanities — “go be a dead cunt somewhere else!” is a highlight — and needling a stone-faced Ava, who was a physiotherapist before all of this happened, to fix his messed-up shoulder. Between him and a predatory survivor who appears for a harrowing sequence late in the film, the living men around Ava are scarier than the dead ones. 

That’s an interesting take, as is the conception of the zombies themselves. In “We Bury the Dead,” reanimation is not a given; it happens randomly and in stages, and the creatures get more dangerous the longer they’ve been alive. Their bodies are veiny and purple. Their eyes are white. But the creepiest thing about them is the way they sound: Hilditch and sound designer Duncan Campbell fill the soundtrack with the chattering of zombie teeth, an ominous and nerve-shredding noise that pairs well with tense set pieces lit by flashlight. 

Overall, the craft of the movie is top-notch, with compelling performances, urgent pacing, and gorgeous cinematography. One memorable sequence sees Ava being chased through a rusted-out bus by a handful of zombies; it’s shot from above, and she looks like a mouse skittering through a maze as she swerves trying to evade the creatures. The “Tasmanian tragedy,” as a newscaster refers to it early on in the film, happened suddenly. And as Ava and Clay cross the island, they pass through grotesque tableaus of lives ended in media res — including a bachelor party complete with a zombie stripper. 

In an echo of East Asian disaster-horror hybrids like “The Host” and “Godzilla Minus One,” the “incident” that killed 500,000 people within seconds is blamed on the American military, specifically an experimental weapon that was discharged — whether purposely or by accident is unclear — by a passing warship. The Australian government’s response is militarized as well, and the mass graves full of bodies recovered by volunteers like Ava and Clay bring to mind overflowing funeral homes in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Certain images also recall the Fukushima nuclear accident of 2011, all of which combine to give “We Bury the Dead” a contemporary feel.

One thing that isn’t new here is the core metaphor, which is to say that this film is — all together now — “really about grief.” Ava is under intense pressure to find her husband, who was away at a work retreat at a seaside resort when the disaster began. The theme gets more heavy-handed as she approaches her destination, and by the end of the film, her desire for love and family have manifested in ways that are disappointingly reductive, given how inventive “We Bury the Dead” can be in other aspects of the film. But for a movie about stinking, bloated corpses, on the whole, this one is surprisingly fresh. 

Grade: B-

“We Bury the Dead” premiered at SXSW 2025. It is currently seeking U.S. distribution.

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