Black Zombie is a must-watch documentary for horror fans. Zombies have been a part of pop culture so long that many people don’t know the origin of the zombie and how much our view of zombies has changed through decades of fictional depictions. Filmmaker Maya Annik Bedward does an excellent job of guiding viewers through a time before zombies and flesh-eaters were considered the same thing by most people, bringing Haitian culture, history, and spirituality to the forefront. Both informative and entertaining, Black Zombie is an excellent documentary that I’m excited for Daily Dead readers to check out now that it’s started its theatrical run. Ahead of the release, I caught up with Maya Annik Bedward to talk about the making of Black Zombie:
“BLACK ZOMBIE digs beneath the blood-soaked spectacle of modern horror to uncover the zombie’s buried and unsettling origins. Long before it became associated with flesh-eating ghouls, the zombie was a living metaphor for slavery: not a monster, but the ultimate victim of colonial power. A symbol of stolen agency was recast as an object of fear, while Black spiritual traditions were distorted, sensationalized, and erased. Director Maya Annik Bedward traces the evolution of the zombie from colonial Haiti to contemporary Hollywood, reconsidering iconic films like WHITE ZOMBIE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW alongside archival footage, vérité scenes, and interviews with cultural historians, artists, and genre legends including Yves-Grégory Francois, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini, and Zandashé Brown. Part cultural reckoning, part horror remix, BLACK ZOMBIE exposes how a figure born from enslavement, spiritual belief, and resistance was transformed into one of pop culture’s most profitable monsters.”
- Director: Maya Annik Bedward
- Writer: Maya Annik Bedward
- Producers: Maya Annik Bedward, Hannah Donegan, Kate Fraser
- Executive Producers: Jennifer Holness, Michael Paszt, Andrew Thomas Hunt, James Fler, and Slash
- Featuring: Yves-Grégory Francois, Tananarive Due, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini, and Zandashé Brown
- Release details: BLACK ZOMBIE opens September 11 at the Quad Cinema in New York and Laemmle’s Nuart in Los Angeles, and will expand to select theaters nationwide.