Daisy Ridley stars in zombie drama with fading pulse

The first sentence of the tagline for the new film “We Bury the Dead” reads, “After a catastrophic military disaster, the dead don’t just rise — they hunt,” its official synopsis going on to use words and phrases including “catastrophic military disaster,” “quarantine zone” and “undead.”

- Tribune News Service

Yep, this is a zombie movie. However, no doubt at least in part to what appears to have been a relatively limited budget, this is more of a character study than a thriller based around heart-pounding encounters with hordes of mindless hungry types.That's understandable. The problem is that as a character study, writer-director Zak Hilditch’s “We Bury the Dead” — in theatres this week—largely spins its post-apocalyptic wheels despite some nice touches and a game effort from star Daisy Ridley. The “Star Wars” alum portrays Ava Newman, an American living in California with her Australian husband, Mitch (Matt Whelan). After a flashback introducing us to the seemingly happy pair, we find Ava in the Australian island state of Tasmania, where “the pulse” — a US military experiment gone wrong — has killed many.