We Bury the Dead

The Undead as Symptoms, Living in the Aftermath.

I am no longer sure how much my growing cynicism towards the world influences the way I watch films—but it definitely plays a different and twisted role.

“We Bury the Dead,” directed by Zak Hilditch, arrives as one of the first horror films of 2026, after go round the festival circuit throughout 2025, and it was a film I was looking forward with anticipation.

Zombie cinema has always operated as a subconscious representation for collective anxieties—as all horror monsters do—yet in the aftermath of the 2020s pandemic, the undead have increasingly been reframed less as villains and more as symptoms. Infection has replaced evil…Illness has overtaken myth.

This film enters that territory with no mercy, though I will avoid following the most obvious interpretative path and instead approach it through a more personal reflection.

If COVID-19 claimed countless lives while leaving behind unresolved questions, conflicting narratives and persistent distrust, what it failed to produce was the oft-invoked rhetoric of kindness and unity. What remains instead is isolation, resentment and fear.

A world in which survival no longer implies solidarity, but suspicion and self-isolation. In such a climate, betrayal carries little shame, and selfishness becomes the dominant moral code.

Contemporary horror reflects this torment. Once a space for visceral thrills and transgressive fun, the genre has increasingly mutated into a landscape of psychological desolation, where despair outweighs shock and dialogue carries more menace than the creatures themselves.

The true monsters are no longer those created to scare; they reside in language, behaviour and nihilism. The creatures we still label as monsters often function merely as projections of our mutual or personal dread.

“We Bury the Dead” aspires to operate within this framework. It presents itself as a psychological zombie film concerned with chemical warfare, pharmaceutical experimentation and the uneasy suggestion that humanity may already be complicit test subjects in its own undoing.

It gestures towards themes of loss, survival, manipulation and fear, yet rarely translates them into meaningful emotional engagement. The result is not unsettling so much as inert.

Bleakness is mistaken for depth, and monotony replaces tension. Although the narrative depicts a devastated world clinging to survival, the film struggles to convince us that anything truly human remains beneath the ruins.

The zombies themselves are emblematic of this failure: visually present but dramatically predictable in both presence and function. They function less as narrative figures and more as classic horror elements, decorative reminders of a genre the film seems hesitant to fully embrace.

That said, the practical effects and prosthetics are undeniably outstanding, though in an era where low-budget horror has demonstrated how creativity can eclipse resources, such craftsmanship no longer astonishes by default.

The cinematography mirrors the film’s emotional intensity—bleak, ashen, blurred—favouring a sorrowful visual aesthetic that leans more towards gloomy drama than horror.

There is, undeniably, much the film wishes to say. Intention alone, however, cannot sustain impact. As the horror genre continues to expand, it also suffers from a growing uniformity of ideas and aesthetics.

Repetition dulls urgency, and even the most earnest independent productions risk suffocating beneath the weight of familiar post-pandemic metaphors.

“We Bury the Dead” stands as a reflection of a broken world, but stops short of interrogating it.

In a genre increasingly crowded with despair, horror demands not just atmosphere, but new turns of insight on familiar fears. Without them, even the undead begin to feel lifeless.