WE BURY THE DEAD

When America accidentally drops a chemical b*mb on Tasmania, it decimates most of the population. Ava Newman (Daisy Ridley) flies in from mainland Australia to join the body retrieval effort, driven by a desperate hope to locate missing husband Mitch (Matt Whelan). Working alongside the army and paired with ocker bogan Clay (Brenton Thwaites), she navigates the dystopian landscape while avoiding corpses who come back to life. Mark Coles Smith adds to the unsettling energy as a creepy, grief stricken soldier harbouring an ulterior motive. Filmed entirely in Albany, Western Australia, the cinematography crafts a dangerous world through vast aerial shots that make the characters feel isolated and small. The sickly crunch of the zombies grinding their teeth to the point of shattering is unnerving and creates a nails-on-a-blackboard sensation that made me squirm in my seat. Thanks to masterful special effects, the blood and grime covered zombies are disturbingly real and complement the heavy tension that infiltrates every scene. The emotional weight of Ava’s grief is as inescapable as the apocalypse itself and while the ending offers a glimmer of hope, the overall outlook is bleak. A fresh home-grown take on the zombie horror genre.