An American weapon accidently detonates, killing hundreds of thousands of people with an electromagnetic charge. But some of the rotting dead rise again … and have a goal in mind. This gory zombie film is surprisingly poignant at times, with thoughts of family and emotional healing at its core. Of course, it still vomits up an abundance of gore, rancid language and heavy drinking.
When the bomb detonated on the island, its inhabitants had very little time to react. They might have been in the midst of a rousing chorus of Happy Birthday in the backyard, or quietly sharing a beer with a friend on the porch, or sharing a fancy dinner with a spouse. And then, in an instant, they were dead.
It was all the fault of an American experimental weapon: an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, when it accidentally went off, instantly caused neural failure of all living things within range. And that included everything on the island state of Tasmania.
That’s not to suggest that the American explosion was neat and tidy. Along with the blink-of-an-eye murder of 500,000 people, the bomb transformed the southwestern part of Tasmania into a burning, smoking landscape.
And that’s the image that filled every TV set around the globe.
The disaster triggered the pity of the world, and the government of Australia had no problem gathering volunteers to help in body recovery efforts. It wasn’t pleasant duty, but it was humanitarian work that many across the globe flooded in to help with. Families of the dead needed closure.
Ava was one of that large helpful group. However, her volunteer service wasn’t just out of the kindness of her heart. Ava had an ulterior motive: Her husband, Mitch, had been attending a business retreat at a small resort on the southernmost part of Tasmania.
Of course, the authorities already made it clear that no one could possibly have survived this vile weapon. No one! And the southern part of Tasmania was completely off limits. But Ava isn’t one to take no for an answer. She will find a way to reach her husband’s body, no matter what. She must.
Oh, but there’s one other thing worth noting.
It’s true that everyone on the island instantly dropped down like a rock when the bomb went off. But the bodies don’t all stay down. Some get back up.
Scientists aren’t sure why. And there doesn’t seem to be any true mental activity in the process; more like a chicken-with-it’s-head-cut-off sort of thing. But sometimes the rare corpse will rise up, gnashing its teeth into a bloody, broken-shard mess. Despite rotting flesh, decayed muscles, putrefying eyeballs and broken limbs, they rise up and stand there, clenching their fists and snapping their jaws.
It’s almost as if they have … some unfinished business.
Through flashback scenes we see Ava and her husband, Mitch, during happier moments. For instance, she looks at a dead woman’s wedding photo and recalls the beauty and happiness of her own wedding day.
Ava is teamed up with a man named Clay—a foul-mouthed guy who’s difficult to get along with. However, with time they ease into a friendship and help each other through several perilous moments.
Part of the reason that Ava was so determined to find Mitch is because they fought before he left. She isn’t even fully sure what she hopes will happen when (or if) she finds him. And while she doesn’t exactly get the emotional resolution she was seeking, the journey helps her say goodbye and find some modicum of emotional peace.
Ava also helps a father who goes above and beyond to care for and properly bury his deceased family. And through these sorts of moments, We Bury the Dead makes a powerful statement about the deep-rooted commitment we feel for the people and family members we love.
During the removal of the dead, some religious figures preside over the disposal of the bodies. A female minister holding a Bible and small crucifix sends the dead on their way by saying, “in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” A Buddhist monk chimes a small bell while in prayer.
Though far from titillating, Ava encounters a couple who died while showering together. Both are naked and the woman’s chest is exposed, but their flesh has decayed. Ava and Clay also come upon the remains of a bachelor party that was obviously in full party mode when the bomb was detonated. We see scores of dressed men slumped over and a handful of women dressed in bras and panties. One female corpse still has its leg up on a pole.
Ava and Clay jump into a swimming pool: He’s shirtless and she’s dressed in a t-shirt and panties. After drinking all night, they wake in the same bed. But there’s no indication that they had been intimate.
[Spoiler Warning] After finally finding her husband, Ava discovers that he was having a sexual encounter with a female co-worker. We never see the woman’s body, but Ava comments on how pretty she used to be, based on her work badge.
Though intensely gory at times (more below) We Bury the Dead works slowly up to its gushing bloodletting.
The film begins with a massive nuclear bomb-like explosion that leaves miles of land decimated and smoldering. As a consequence, we’re first exposed to scores and scores of corpses that the volunteers pull out of homes. The bodies have been dead long enough to have started to rot and fester—eyes oozing, bones broken from falls, faces battered and mouldering.
Then, some stand up.
The notable similarity in these zombies is that they all violently grind their teeth: breaking them into broken, bloody shards as their jaws flex and jawbones snap. Some of the arisen dead are missing limbs or hobbling on completely snapped or bent-over legs and ankles.
This early wave of undead doesn’t seem to do much and they are quickly shot in the head by armed soldiers. With time though, Ava and Clay encounter more aggressive creatures that chase and claw at them. One chases Ava in through the broken windows of a bus, grabbing at her legs and skirt. It moves to attack, and Ava bashes in its brains and smashes its facial bones with blows from a small fire extinguisher.
From there the zombies become more aggressively violent. We see a barn full of them chained to the walls, slavering and thrashing around and snapping their own arms and legs in the effort. As various zombies of this sort smash and rip their way down hallways and roads, we see them shot in the forehead and in the back of the head, reducing their noggins to goopy mulch. Blood flows profusely.
Ava is forced to kill a living human attacker as well. After the man manhandles and threatens her sexually, she stabs him in the neck several time with a pair of scissors. The camera watches closely as his wound gushes blood and he bleeds out.
[Spoiler Warning] Along the way, someone points out that the dead that come back have something they are desperately driven to finish. For example, we see the badly decayed corpse of a very pregnant woman stand up. And later Ava discovers the zombified woman no longer pregnant but with large splashes of blood on the front and back of her dress. That “unfinished business” focus becomes key with several zombie interactions, some not violent at all.
There are more than 30 f-words and a half dozen s-words spattering the dialogue along with a single use of “h—,” and a misuse each of God’s and Jesus’ names.
Clay is a smoker, and we see him lighting up cigarettes repeatedly. Several others smoke as well. Clay also drinks heavily on occasion. He and Ava stop at a deserted hotel where they swim and drink together, getting quite drunk. Both wake the next morning very hung over.
Clay discovers a party with lots of booze and cocaine, and he helps himself to both. He asks Ava if she wants to partake, but she demurs.
Volunteers are assigned the job of going house to house and pulling the dead out to the curb for removal. When Ava begins the job, she has a very difficult time passing happy family photos; she quietly mourns people she never knew.
We see several people vomit after handling the dead. One guy vomits on a corpse. A drunken volunteer vomits in a punch bowl. We see a woman who discovered her young son’s body under a covering in the back of a truck. She weeps and cries for him to, “Wake up! Oh, my boy, my boy.”
Ava spots a baby crib and remembers she and Mitch’s efforts to have a child. In the memory, she weeps while looking at a failed pregnancy test. Mitch comforts her, telling her that they have all the time in the world to be successful (which, of course, they did not).
Ava is desperate to get to the southern part of the island. After trying and failing to sneak past soldiers, she eventually convinces Clay to steal a motorcycle and help her travel the hundreds of miles to reach her destination.
Zombie movies are legion. Through the ages they’ve been used to motivate audiences to wrestle with all sorts of societal anxieties: war, disease, corruption and even an examination of that frail, thin line that separates the human Jekyll and the monstrous Hyde within all of us.
In its own way, We Bury the Dead draws on all of those themes. But interestingly—thanks in great part to quiet moments with Daisy Ridley’s character, Ava—this pic asks us to think about the unfinished things in our lives; the things we long most passionately to complete. Ava’s journey then becomes one of healing more than survival.
Now, that may sound like a heady recipe for a monster-masher flick. But it’s every bit a part of this movie’s zombie DNA as oozing blood and rotting flesh.
Of course, that gut gurgling, broken-toothed-gnashing and gory gushing side is very evident here as well, as is noxiously foul language, heavy boozing, sexualized peril and other wincing bits and pieces you might expect while watching a former human head be pureed into bloody hamburger with a dangling eyeball.
See, I didn’t say this was a sweet zombie movie, just an unexpectedly thoughtful one.
After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.
