- by FJK
- The Guardian
- Issue #2179
Everyone knows how zombies work. They’re not alive, yet not dead, they want to eat people, and that’s about it. The only recent zombie innovations are that in recent decades they’ve started running a fair bit in addition to their usual creepy shuffling. Apart from that, zombies don’t change much.
Another thing that hasn’t changed about zombies is audiences. Some people are always up for a zombie movie, others run in the opposite direction with the speed of a modern zombie. In the case of new Australian film We Bury The Dead that’s a shame, because this movie has a lot to recommend it over the usual Hollywood scream-athon, and much to offer to viewers who can take or leave zombies, but like Australian film.
Set in Tasmania, but filmed on the lands of the Noongar nation, in West Australia, We Bury The Dead starts briskly, letting us know that a US navy ship accidentally discharged an experimental weapon off the coast of Tasmania. Coming from a military that dropped two $67 million-dollar planes in the water and shot down a third off the coast of Yemen, this part is quite believable. The Australian Prime Minister’s feeble squeak of disapproval brings to mind Albanese’s “this is not the act of a friend” in response to Trump tariffing Australia like it’s a total stranger.
The ‘pulse weapon’ kills every Tasmanian, but a lot of them come back to life in a very creepy zombie fashion, with a broken-jaw crunching noise I’m going to take a while to get over.
Ava (Daisy Ridley) flies in from the US to try to rescue her husband who was at a corporate ‘retreat’ function when the US navy made its mistake. She volunteers for ‘body retrieval’ in Devonport, but soon sneaks off with fellow volunteer Clay (Brenton Thwaites, doing a somewhat tryhard sweary tradie bit). The two of them take off on a road trip in search of Ava’s missing husband.
So what’s different and what’s worth watching?
For zombie-movie nerds, there’s the fact that these zombies are different. For a start, not everyone affected by the US Navy’s blunder comes back. For a lot of the movie, it’s an open question as to whether the ones who do come back are harmful or just pitiable. The military takes no chances and kills the returnees when they can. One character speculates that the ones who come back “have unfinished business,” which is very much the theme of the movie as we gradually find out what Ava’s own unfinished business is.
Trailers for We Bury The Dead don’t do it justice, pitching it squarely at the conventional Hollywood horror flick market, and showing some fast terrifying running-away-from-zombie action. What makes We Bury The Dead stand out is the many moments of quiet throughout. Being an Australian movie, there are a lot of beautiful widescreen scenery shots, but there are also intimate quiet moments that give the cast a chance to show real grief and real shock without wallowing in it. It’s not exactly Ozu, the Japanese director famed for long still shots, but compared to your average US horror-action flick it might as well be.
It’s a cliché to try to wring some tears from your audience about zombies having humble ordinary former lives, but this movie does a great job with that too, showing us the pictures people keep on little noticeboards in their campervans, work lanyards and name tags.
Acting-wise, Ridley does a great job, while Thwaites strains himself piling on the swearing like someone who’s just discovered the f and c words last week and is determined to try them. Nyikina actor Mark Coles-Smith, from the latest instalment in the Mystery Road franchise and the Australian film Sweet As, does a great job as a determined soldier dealing with loss. If the people who make action blockbusters don’t snap him up, that’s their loss.
Seven out of ten red stars.
