Zombies are everywhere. They’re on your television set, in your movie theaters, in your comics, in your novels, in your video games, and, yes, even in Minecraft nerdcore tunes. Why? What’s the obsession with zombies and where did they come from? The first part is up for debate with film scholars and cultural historians putting forth their own very valid theories regarding otherism and the propping-up of colonialism. The second, however, is not, as the concept of a zombie comes from Haiti within the religious practice Vodou. In her feature-film directorial debut, Maya Annik Bedward (LIDO TV; Why We Fight) seeks to understand the preoccupation of today by looking backward at the very real events that not only brought the concept of a zombie to American shores, but bolstered it through fiction as it propagated outlandish lies and racist tropes for more than a century in Black Zombie, having its world premiere in the Spotlight section of SXSW Film & TV Festival 2026.
Structured across multiple parts, Black Zombies is methodical in its use of talking head interviews, historical materials, samples from popular culture, and captured footage to construct a timeline of events surrounding the concept of the “zombie.” With each new piece, Bedward furthers an argument in which zombies, as they exist today, not only propagate the sensationalism of “othering” that feeds baser human instincts, but are stripped entirely of its origin and molded into something self-serving, which is, in and of itself, another form of violence. In its original form, a “zombie” was one stripped of agency and forced to work, the earliest sightings being in Haiti working for American Sugar Company. As legend of such people grew, it would take a different shape thanks to, first, author W.B. Seabrook (The Magic Island), then George A. Romero (Living Dead franchise; The Amusement Park), and, now, to horror creators from Danny Boyle (28 Days Later franchise) to Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead) to Claudio Sanchez (The Amory Wars). Dissecting the legends via conversation and presentation are experts who include author/filmmaker Tananarive Due (Horror Noire), Tom Savini (Living Dead franchise), filmmaker Zandashé Brown (Benediction), Vodou practitioner Yves-Grégory Francois, cartoonist Joe Ollmann (The Abominable Mr. Seabrook), as well as several others. Their contributions form the timeline that ends in global contagion and begins with slavery.
The timeline starts in 1791 Haiti and ends in the present, with steps along the way demonstrating how the theft of Haitian Vodou into populist culture (spelled as Voodoo in America or reductively as “hoodoo”) in the early 1900s is based on racist ideology that continues into today’s current zombie and that the metaphorical shackles placed upon the people of Haiti today are, themselves, forged by the slave trade forced upon Haitian ancestors. Rather than following a strict timeline, however, Bedward weaves her way forward and back through time, stopping along the way to discuss William Seabrook (author of 1929’s The Magic Island which was adapted into Victor Halperin’s White Zombie) who introduced the term “zombie” into the American lexicon via a cultural expert, the contributions of George A. Romero (Living Dead series) via co-writer John A. Russo and longtime collaborator Savini, while making room to talk with practitioners of Vodou and observe their rituals. The choice to move through time as needed for the topic at hand creates a sensation of standing on a beach with the waves of time splashing your feet, the pull and push of the ocean at your toes. It’s an apt sensation given the film-within-a-film element Bedward uses to help illustrate some of the points the historians make regarding the initial appearances of zombies in Haiti, but more on that shortly. There’s a version of Black Zombie that could be envisioned as chronological, but doing so would place the importance on timing of events and not the repercussions of them.
A scene from BLACK ZOMBIE. Photo Credit: Manuela Hidalgo. Photo courtesy of SXSW.
Most of these repercussions come from the depiction of Vodou and the Haitian people, the ones featured within Black Zombie being descendants of African slaves. When it comes to mainstream depictions of things deemed “exotic” or “third-world,” it’s often the most salacious aspects which get picked up and the truth left somewhere in the scraps. One such example Bedward uses is the incorporation of Baron Samedi in 1973’s 007 adventure, Live and Let Die. The figure is a tall Black man with a top hat and black outfit, a full body skull design incorporated via costume and makeup. Within the film, Baron Samedi is a henchman for Yaphet Kotto’s Dr. Kananga, a Voodoo practitioner and drug lord capable of various feats of strength and mysticism, including surviving a shot to the head. As expressed within Black Zombie by a Vodou practitioner, Baron Samedi is a figure who cares for and shepherds the dead, not something fearsome or loathsome. Tom Mankiewicz’s script wasn’t exactly going for accuracy as it was leaning heavily into the Blacksploitation movement of the cinematic era, opting to use what might make audiences uncomfortable and James Bond’s (Roger Moore) task more difficult. There’s also a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment where the film’s Samedi shows off a Death tarot card, intended as a threat within the film (as well as in countless other media depictions), but the card itself actually refers to change and transformation, not the ending of a life. These are two prime examples of the ways in which Vodou is utilized in mainstream media to frighten audiences, and do so to the detriment of the people who practice. Though Bedward doesn’t reference current U.S. Vice-President JD Vance’s debunked claims against Haitian citizens, the history laid before us of media’s distortion of cultural practices, as well as fact-based materials that demonstrate the subjugation of the Haitian people by the French post-independence, one can divine a correlation to the events and why they were deemed acceptable by some.
One of the more fascinating elements is the film-within-a-film portions Bedward incorporates. As with other documentaries, sometimes a filmmaker may use actors to stage, simulate, or otherwise reconstruct how something occurred. There’s an argument here, however, that what Bedward is doing is a reclamation. In the same way that White Zombie made the concept of a zombie popular with a white women as the victim (feeding the “othering” of the Black community that existed in pre-Civil Rights Movement America (and is still thriving today)), Bedward titles her documentary Black Zombie with her film-within-a-film telling the story of a slave turned into a zombie and forced to continue working, thereby centering the slave without incorporating the white lens and without reducing the Black experience. Taking into account the stories and lived experiences of the participants, the title of the doc and its film-within create a shape of joy, pride, and recovery for what was stolen and what can be repossessed.
To discuss the importance of Black Zombie without delving too deeply into specifics, one can point to Oscar-nominee Sinners (2025) from writer/director Ryan Coogler and his character Annie (portrayed beautifully by Wunmi Mosaku). Within the film, Annie is a Vodou practitioner who utilizes her faith to take protective measures against forces of great evil that seek to swallow the characters whole. The presentation of Annie and her faith is treated as commonplace within the film, her faith and practices presented in the same way as a Catholic or Jewish character would, including reaching for a cross or tefillin as a means of protection against opposing forces. Unlike White Zombie wherein the Haitian villain uses Voodoo to first enslave workers for his capitalist gain and then a white woman for his other needs, and unlike Marked for Death (1990) which features a Jamaican Obeah (adjacent to Vodou) as weapons against law enforcement — both furthering the notion of Black-based religious practices being violent in nature — Sinners’s use of Vodou is more akin to how it’s described by the experts who speak with Bedward: of light, healing, and community. If Remmick (Jack O’Connell) represents consumptive colonization, then Annie represents healing spiritualism that comes from a connection to the Earth and one’s people. Remmick only desires to increase his strength and bring everyone into his hive mind, whereas Annie seeks to protect the individuals she loves (Smoke, Miles, Mary, and their friends). All of the tropes audiences are used to about Voodoo and its practitioners are turned upside down in a celebration of the strength of Black community and faith (which does include Christianity, something which Bedward’s Black Zombie addresses). Part of what makes Sinners feel so revelatory is the way it takes the tropes of Blacksploitation cinema and inverts them, giving audiences a chance at a proper depiction of the various aspects of the Black community.
Bedward’s Black Zombie is a first step toward the encroaching infection of colonialism by way of the truth. That means looking at the history of a people and acknowledging where society failed, where society turned a blind eye, and where it made the choice to profit off pain (and continue to do so). Though there are a few moments in which the documentary feels as though it’s meandering to make its point, one doesn’t doubt its sincerity or intention. Additionally, Black Zombie is a strong statement for a first-time feature filmmaker, defiantly declaring that Blackness and Vodou are not only distinct, neither are criminal, regardless of place or time. It is, perhaps, too late to put the concept of the zombie away or to remove the foundation of “othering” that the undead figures possess, but it’s not too late to create a cultural inoculation that can restore the dignity of the Haitian people and Vodou practitioners.
Screening during SXSW Film & TV Festival 2026.
For more information, head to the official SXSW Film & TV Festival Black Zombie webpage.
Final Score: 4.5 out of 5.
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Categories: In Theaters, Reviews
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