We Bury the Dead (2025)

Signature Entertainment are releasing writer-director Zak Hilditch's latest post-apocalyptic drama (he made the emotional endurance test that was 2013's THESE FINAL HOURS) on Digital, with a DVD and Blu-ray release to follow. The apocalypse in question is rather more low-key this time around and those who have seen THESE FINAL HOURS will probably be relieved to hear WE BURY THE DEAD isn't quite the hammer blow to the senses that Mr Hilditch's previous genre effort was.

America makes a terrible mistake (likely to be a recurring theme in cinema for the next few years) and a pulse bomb is let off by accident, killing everyone on the Australian island state of Tasmania. There's no radiation pollution so once the fires have settled down teams of volunteers are sent in to clear up the dead. Before they do so, however, they are warned by the military that some of the victims are waking up and aren't at all like they were.

Ava (Daisy Ridley), an American, comes over as part of the volunteer corps with the intention of looking for her husband who was at a convention in Hobart. She teams up with Clay (Brendon Thwaites) and together they make their way south into territory that is yet to be cleared by the authorities as safe to enter.

Whereas THESE FINAL HOURS was an unflinching, brutally cynical under-the-microscope examination of humankind faced with certain death after a worldwide disaster, WE BURY THE DEAD comes across more like one of zombie genre progenitor George A Romero's more thoughtful, equally concerned movies like THE CRAZIES (1973). Once our civilians are clearing up bodies it becomes clear that the military can't be trusted and neither, necessarily, is Ava who is harbouring her own secrets.

There are zombies, but only very seldom are they encountered so anyone expecting an undead gorefest will be disappointed. Once Ridley and Thwaites are on the road the film suffers from slowing the action down a bit too much when it should perhaps be developing into more of a road movie, but for a low-key, restrained piece this isn't bad at all. Here's the trailer:

Zak Hilditch's WE BURY THE DEAD is out from Signature Entertainment on Digital  HD on Monday 2nd February 2026 and Blu-ray and DVD on Monday 16th February 2026