Zombie movies are fun of course! but I saw Handling the Undead a few days ago and really liked how poetic and respectful it was. Its hard to describe but it wasn't really about zombies but rather about how people handle grief differently.
I've tried googling the genre but it recommended Hellraiser 2022 (too campy) and When Evil Lurks (good but I needed several breaks from the gore).
Movies with the same would be The Night House, Hereditary, The Descent and maybe earlier seasons of The Walking Dead.
A Dark Song
I think the movie A Ghost Story (2017) might fit what you're looking for
I recommend The Surrender (2025)
The director made it because of her own grief, as per her interview here. They also discuss similar movies.
https://episodes.fm/1802719820/episode/YzFhZWRkYzctODVjNy00M2JkLWEwZjctMGNlNTY3ZjkzNjIx
I think its a real mood piece. Very somber? There's "they came back" its a French movie with a similar premise.
You might like Mike Flanagan‘s work like The Haunting of Hill House, Midnight Mass or Dr. Sleep
Hereditary
A Dark Song
supposedly Bring Her Back but I haven't seen it yet
can't get much more genuine than Antichrist since it was written by the director during a depression crisis, but it's just as graphic as When Evil Lurks if not more.
28 Years Later fits the bill too. Zombies + surprisingly poetic meditation on grief and death..
The Eternal Daughter (2011) is a horror/drama where the drama works way better than the horror - a deliberately old-school ghost story. It didn't quite work for me, but the story is obviously personal to the writer/director, and it is pretty affecting. Rarely see it mentioned around these parts.
It's not about grief, exactly, but: there's a fairly cheesy low budget anthology movie called The Theater Bizarre - in between some rowdy, fairly nasty horror shorts, you get a segment which... well, if you'll excuse me quoting myself:
'The Accident', by Douglas Buck, is a complete outlier: an entirely tasteful reverie built around a frank conversation about death between a mother (Lenna Kleine) and her very young child (Mélodie Simard) after they witness a gruesome accident. It's not a particularly deep conversation, but it is heartfelt and real in a way films, particularly genre films, struggle to get right. The music is great and the filmmaking is on-point, with some staggeringly beautiful roadside scenery and a dying deer so realistic I stuck around the credits to make sure the 'no animals were harmed in the filming of this picture' disclaimer popped up (it did). The acting is as naturalistic as the script. A gorgeous little short, its power magnified several times over for being nestled between all this cheerfully depraved material. And hey, I've now spoiled that effect for you.
I've since watched another movie from the same director (Family Portraits) and the guy is legitimately good. Shame he hasn't managed to get many projects off the ground.
The Awakening
Bring Her Back (?) and From Black
Damn I realized I still haven’t watched this one yet. As a fan of Let The Right One In, I need to check this one asap