“We Bury the Dead” is perhaps the emptiest nothing movie I have watched in a long time. It is worse than bad, it is in fact, nothing. Nothing is the worst thing a movie can be.
The film is directed by Zak Hilditch and stars Daisy Ridley as Ava, Brenton Thwaites as Clay, and Mark Coles Smith as Riley. The movie is set in Tasmania after America accidentally launches a new experimental weapon resulting in the city of Hobart being destroyed and leaving the remaining population brain dead. But of course, some are still alive and might as well be zombies.
Ava is an American who has volunteered to help with the clean-up of the area in hopes of finding her husband’s body. She is assigned with Clay, a local in the area who, besides being cool-looking, has no personality. They are tasked with going into houses to find dead bodies and then alert the military of the ones that are alive. Ava wants to go looking in the area her husband was in, so the two find a motorcycle and ride off before encountering Riley, a member of the military who says he will help them. While all of this is happening, we see flashbacks of Ava and her husband before he went away to Tasmania.
It’s simple, and with a run time of around 90 minutes, you’d think it would be nice and straight to the point. But for some reason, it takes forever for anything to happen, and feels double the length. One-third of the film is spent on the opening scenes of corpses being dragged around. It’s so utterly boring and it’s not even scary. Things happen in the movie, but it feels like nothing happens.
The ending isn’t great either, dragging on for way too long. Essentially, Riley kidnaps Ava and tries to make her his wife, but she kills him. She meets back up with Clay and they find her husband’s body. It’s revealed that Ava cheated on her husband and that’s why he left for Tasmania. Then Ava and Clay ride off. It’s supposed to be emotional, but it’s so hard to care about these characters or their lives.
The acting is alright; Ridley gives a good enough performance. The film’s atmosphere is pretty good along with the general setting being nice to look at. But then again, I didn’t sacrifice 90 minutes of my life just to watch a pretty screensaver.
What shocks me the most is the positive attitude many have toward the film. Personally, I think this has to do with the general rejection horror movies get from the mainstream compared to other genres. To some, “We Bury the Dead” is unique and different, and therefore worthy of praise. But to me if a horror movie isn’t scary, if it isn’t giving a deep message, and if it isn’t entertaining, it has failed. Do not watch this movie, you would be wasting 90 minutes of your life that you can never get back. I give “We Bury the Dead” a 4.3 out of 10.