Black Zombie comes back from the dead this fall just in time for Halloween. The acclaimed documentary directed by Maya Annik Bedward gets its first trailer ahead of its theatrical rollout, which begins this September. Black Zombie traces the origins of one of the most popular figures in contemporary horror as Bedward looks to the roots of zombies in Haitian Vodou.
Bedward combs through Hollywood history and speaks with cultural experts, film buffs, and horror nerds to learn the ways in which the zombie has morphed from a culturally-specific figure to a universally-recognized brain-eating ghoul. Black Zombie considers the legacy of cultural appropriation entailed within the popularization of the zombie and reclaims its image while allowing people to appreciate their beloved horror movies in their own right. It simply makes a case for awareness and understanding, and perhaps a call to action for future iterations to do their homework.
“Expecting pushback for walking over the sacred ground of the undead, the director was surprised by just how supportive the horror community was when she pitched the idea for the film at Frontières, the industry market at the Fantasia Film Festival,” wrote Courtney Small while profiling Black Zombie in issue #124. “While the birth of zombie culture in cinema is the hook that reels the viewer into the documentary, Haiti’s turbulent history and the unfair ways that Vodou has been demonized are the true heart of the film.”
“In the early days, people would ask if I was alienating horror audiences because [I was] criticizing their love for zombies,” Bedward told Small. However, the pitch session reaffirmed why it was important for this story to be told. “The genre community was so excited for the film, they wanted to learn more about the origin and better understand how Vodou had been disparaged.”
Black Zombie premiered earlier this year at SXSW and had its Canadian debut at Hot Docs where it was among the audience favourites. The film arrives on the heels of a surge in popularity for horror movies with Sinners and Weapons both winning Oscars this year and independent works like Obsession and Backrooms doing gangbusters at the box office. Reviewing the film at Hot Docs, Nidhil Vohra said, “Black Zombie stands out as an excellent excavation of a specific element of the horror genre, one that privileges Black history and culture and works to re-educate people on a phenomenon that unites countless fans across the world.”
Watch the trailer for Black Zombie below:
