No sound effect makes people squirm quite like grinding teeth. Zak Hilditch, who wrote and directed the new zombie feature “We Bury the Dead,” out today via Vertical, has seen the noise make audiences shudder in real time, as it’s the signature of the undead in his film.
“When I was delving into the zombie world, we didn’t have all the money in the world, so how do I make these things unique?” Hilditch says. “This idea of growing agitation, what does that look and sound like? It sounds like teeth grinding to me. So that was something even I was milking as much as I possibly could, wherever I could, as it was going to be a really interesting thing to have echo throughout the film. That particular sound was something that the sound team, before we even shot the movie, was most excited about delving into because they could see the possibilities there.
“It’s been interesting watching the film internationally this year, on the festival junket,” he continues. “When we hit that sound, it’s aching, like nails on a chalkboard. There were versions where it was even more extreme, and we had to pull it back a little bit to make it palatable for an audience. That was just one example of how this isn’t a big studio film at all, yet we did everything we could to put you in that headspace. The sound was so important in helping guide that through.”
In the film, Ava Newman (“Star Wars” alum Daisy Ridley) heads to Australia to find and recover her husband after a military accident. Unfortunately, the dead are rising after the incident, and Ava must avoid the teeth-grinding zombies.
“Dead” is the Australia-based auteur’s eighth feature, and Hilditch was inspired to write it by the passing of his mother.
“It was a personal initial kernel of an idea,” he says. “When it comes to grief, realizing there is no silver bullet or a special guidebook to get you through. When my mum passed, it was my job to pack down the family house that I grew up in, which she died in. It was weirdly cathartic having something physical to do. As a filmmaker, there was a part of me thinking, ‘I’m going room to room and making these discoveries.’ There’s something quite intimate yet surreal about it. I thought that there was something worth mining in terms of grief.”
Hilditch says that Ridley signing on for the project added an essential layer of humanity to the film.
“It was just unbelievable,” he says. “She was the very first actress we sent the script to, and within one week, we were Zooming. She was absolutely perfect for the role: Right time, right place. When she arrived on set, seeing that side of her and how she was all-in on this character and my words that I had spewed out on the page … You see her taking that and turning it into a living, breathing entity that goes far beyond your wildest expectations of what this was going to be.”
Hilditch says “the whole movie rests on Ridley’s shoulders, and she absolutely crushed it.”
“I can’t wait for people to see her in this light. I don’t think she’s done something quite like this before,” he adds. “To be plucked from the millions of people who would have died to play Rey, and get through all those three films, and then moving on to the next phase of your filmmaking life as an actor … She’s got a very eclectic bunch of tastes. I’m just really lucky that she saw something in my pages.”
As for the future, Hilditch loves working in horror but is most drawn in to stories led by dynamic characters, no matter the genre.
“I just love ordinary people caught in extraordinary situations,” he says. “This is exactly an example of that. I definitely won’t be going back into zombie tales anytime soon. I never thought I was going to make a zombie movie until I made ‘We Bury the Dead.’ I only wanted to do it if I was able to say something new or interesting. I think I managed to find a fresh enough way to give people the zombie lore that they all have come to expect, but to really pull the rug on your expectations at the same time. If it can still do that, that’s an amazing thing in this modern age.”
Watch the trailer for “We Bury the Dead” below.