“Black Zombie” Review: Hollywood’s Undead Have a Buried History
Hollywood has spent decades teaching audiences to fear zombies, but Maya Annik Bedward’s documentary "Black Zombie" raises a more important question: Who taught Hollywood what a zombie really was in the first place?
Bedward opens her film with a dramatized depiction of enslaved Africans moving through a wooded landscape toward the water. This choice is striking not for blood or gore, but because it grants these individuals something horror films have often denied them: humanity.
Before the zombie became a shuffling corpse hungry for brains, it symbolized the terror of enslavement, the stripping away of freedom, identity, and control over one's own body. From this powerful opening, Bedward traces the evolution of the zombie through Haiti, Vodou spiritual traditions, sensationalist travel writing, and ultimately the Hollywood machine.
The work of William Seabrook, particularly his book "The Magic Island", plays a significant role in demonstrating how outsiders distorted Haitian beliefs into an exotic nightmare for Western audiences. The documentary effectively argues that the story of the zombie cannot be divorced from colonialism, racism, and the cultures exploited for entertainment.
For horror enthusiasts, the cinematic insights are particularly engaging. Films like "White Zombie", "Night of the Living Dead", and "The Serpent and the Rainbow" are revisited through a lens that invites viewers to reconsider their assumptions.
Bedward does not dismiss these films; rather, she prompts us to reflect on what each film borrowed from or altered about the original narratives, and what was left behind. Interviews with historians, artists, spiritual practitioners, and familiar genre figures, including Tom Savini and Slash, add a refreshing variety without turning the film into a mere showcase of celebrity opinions.
The presentation moves quickly between archival material, film clips, interviews, and on-the-ground footage. This energetic pace is both a strength and a weakness. As a fascinating piece of Haitian history begins to emerge, Bedward sometimes shifts to another topic before letting it fully develop. I wanted more time devoted to Haiti's revolutionary legacy and how Vodou has often been oversimplified into a Hollywood shorthand for sinister magic.
This approach makes the film feel particularly relevant today. Zombies are ubiquitous, appearing in everything from prestige television to video games, yet discussions about their origins rarely move beyond George A. Romero. Bedward isn’t trying to take away anyone's monster movie; she’s encouraging audiences to look deeper.
However, this desire for more depth stems from a genuine appreciation for the subject matter, not from dissatisfaction. "Black Zombie" succeeds because it does more than correct the narrative about a familiar movie monster; it restores agency to the people who have been written out of their own mythology.
For a genre that has profited so much from the undead, this overdue history lesson carries a significant impact.
Final Grade: B
