WINNER
Northern Excellence Award – Fantasia International Film Festival 2026
OFFICIAL SELECTION
SXSW Film Festival 2026
Hot Docs 2026
Fantasia International Film Festival 2026
Black Star Film Festival 2026
Opening September 11 in NYC & LA
“Fascinatingly unpacks the origins of one of the most popular horror genres of all time.”
– Brian Tallerico, RogerEbert.com
“An act of reclamation. It’s the rare documentary you want everyone you know to watch.”
– Jessi Cape, The Austin Chronicle
“Brilliant and vital.”
– Jason Adams, Pajiba
“A smart, nuanced love letter to Haiti, and a delight for cinephiles…Bedward artfully threads the needle between Caribbean spiritual practices and what we’ve seen on screen.”
– Caroline Colvin, Dread Central
“A thought-provoking perspective — one that might add some depth to your next
experience of undead cinema.”
– Dennis Harvey, Variety
Synopsis
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 Tananarive Due. 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 the Nuart in Los Angeles, and will expand to select theaters nationwide.
