Disclaimer: I’m a blind film critic. i typically review films with audio description, but I did not have it with my advance of this film. Vertical does occasionally provide audio description, so this title may have it.

Someone has to be first out of the gate. The first official review for 2026. My next year has started, and this one isn’t over. As I continue to consider Oscar bait titles, Vertical is prepping their new zombie horror starring Daisy Ridley, which opens on January 2nd, 2026. So what privileges is the film granted? Well, I can truthfully say this is currently the best film of 2026, but I can also say it is the worst film so far of 2026. Daisy Ridley delivers both the best performance, and the worst. It is the scariest, and the least. the pull quote potential here is quite broad.

2025 has been a year of films that benefitted oddly from their releases, feeling like they made even more of an impact. Movies like One battle After Another, House Of Dynamite, Roofman, and Bugonia had elements people could point to and say they see a commonality around them. I’d argue this zombie flick can only open during a Trump administration.

Who else would you believe might accidentally set off a bomb in Tasmania that decimates the population? Who could possibly be at war with Tasmania of all places? Probably the guy who put tariffs on an island inhabited by penguins, casually talks about annexing Canada and stealing Greenland from Denmark, and bombs fishermen in the Pacific Ocean. Will we be at war with Venezuela, Kenya, or someone else next year? Perhaps Tasmania. Maybe this film is a prophecy.

Sure, without audio description, the film is a bit of a stumble through. I had questions, and I had to do my homework. But, We Bury The Dead has some really cool, fresh zombie ideas. For example, this isn’t a disease or virus, but some weird EMP style bomb, and not everyone comes back. Some come back and just stand there, docile, staring at you. others return to their tasks like the explosion was an inconvenience. Others, typical zombie behavior.

Daisy Ridley plays a woman who recently got married to a guy who happened to be on the ground in Tasmania at the time, and she signs up for the body retrieval team, hoping to find answers. Did he come back? And if so, as what?

the movie is as much a story about grief and the inability to let go as it is anything else. the trope about humans being more dangerous potentially than the zombies takes form, but it really has a lot to do with the inability to move on from tragedy. We’ve seen this before, but this time, it is in a film where not every zombie is instantly your enemy. Trying to assess each interaction is important.

Ridley has had a tough time launching her acting career in a post-Star Wars world. She’s mirroring the problem Sam Worthington ran into when he wasn’t in Avatar. Her career thus far is underwhelming, not always with content, but forgettable films. I think she really hit a brick wall last year with Cleaner, a Die Hard knockoff the studio desperately tried to convince audiences Clive Owen was a co-lead of. I know there’s a curse of January, in terms of quality films, with this usually being a dumping ground. However, this isn’t a bad start.

I’m going out on a limb for this, because everything I seem to have found out about the film, reinforces the idea that I would like it even more with audio description. The Walking dead is my favorite TV Show, so I might be a bit prone to zombie fare. This one taps into a different side of the same story, and it has some terrific sound design. The zombies here make a sound that will seem familiar to fans of Last Of Us.

I can’t score it though. The range and potential for it, is too wide. I’ll commit to the fresh indication in this binary world of good vs bad, but the score is a bridge too far. Want a grade, Vertical? hook me up with audio description.

We Bury The Dead requires its audience to believe America would bomb Tasmania, and if ever it seemed possible, it would be ow.

Fresh.