Daisy Ridley Searches for Hope in ‘We Bury the Dead’

We Bury the Dead has now landed on home entertainment in the UK, marking the latest genre release from Signature Entertainment and offering a sober, character-led approach to the zombie thriller. Written and directed by Zak Hilditch, the 2025 feature places its focus firmly on emotional fallout rather than spectacle, positioning personal loss at the centre of a large-scale catastrophe.

The film stars Daisy Ridley as Ava Newman, an American physiotherapist caught in the aftermath of a disastrous military experiment off the coast of Tasmania. When the detonation leaves much of the island’s population brain dead, Ava joins a government-backed body retrieval unit, hoping the assignment will lead her to her missing husband. That mission becomes increasingly complex as some of the dead begin to show signs of movement, forcing Ava to navigate both literal danger and unresolved personal grief.

Ridley’s performance anchors the film, supported by Brenton Thwaites, Mark Coles Smith and Matt Whelan. Thwaites plays Clay, a fellow volunteer whose own family tensions mirror Ava’s internal struggle, while Coles Smith delivers a disturbing turn as a lone soldier shaped by loss and isolation. Whelan appears as Mitch, Ava’s husband, whose absence drives the story forward and whose fate reframes the film’s emotional stakes.

Hilditch, previously known for adapting Stephen King’s 1922, uses the familiar framework of the undead to explore themes of guilt, regret and unfinished business. Set against desolate Tasmanian landscapes, the film adopts a restrained tone, allowing moments of quiet reflection to sit alongside eruptions of violence. Several sequences deliberately subvert audience expectation, including encounters where the undead display traces of memory and intention rather than mindless aggression.

We Bury the Dead premiered at the 2025 South by Southwest Film and TV Festival, where it drew attention for its tonal discipline and Ridley’s departure from franchise-driven roles. Following a limited North American theatrical run in early January, the film has arrived in the UK as a home release, available on Digital HD from 2 January and on DVD and Blu-ray from 19 January.

The film’s box office performance in the United States, where it posted the strongest opening weekend in Vertical Entertainment’s history, suggests an appetite for genre stories that place character first.

The Hermit trailer