Hot Docs 2026: Black Zombie Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Hot Docs Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Zombies are a central figure in pop culture. Following the release of George Romero’s ‘Night of the Living Dead’, they became synonymous with the horror genre. However, they are yet another case of cultural appropriation, with their roots stem from Haitian culture, as a punishment for Voodoo practices. This serves as a jumping point for Black Zombie, the feature directorial debut of Maya Annik Bedward, a documentary that explores the history of zombie mythology.

Opening with Bedward studying the religious origins of the mythical creature, in Haiti, she talks to a priest who introduces audiences to the practices of Voodoo, an African religion suffering from prejudice. In the former French colony, the government has prohibited the spiritual practice of Voodoo at home, under penalty of death for any found guilty. Moving on, the director explores the role of colonialism in the mythology, a practice hidden from leaders who looked to snuff out anything that could threaten the French crown. Consequently, the first literary conceptualization of a zombie came from white writer William Seabrook’s ‘The Magic Island,’ a study of Voodoo practices, highlighting the dangers of the living dead, usually Black people, to white readers. 

The structure of the film sees Bedward shift from archival footage, usually media from film and TV, talking head interviews, to its recreation of the working fields in 1790s Haiti. Here, she focuses on three different perspectives: the recreation, the oral knowledge, and the popular perspective. The most fascinating passages of her film is the clash between the popularization of the zombies in Romero’s picture and his decision to portray a Black man as the villain. Released in the turmoil of the US civil rights movement, the semiotics of his work corroborates the segregationist vision of the American South. O

On the other hand, the racial aspect is kept on the backburner, while the director develops the Haitian history and the chronology of the zombie as a horror figure. Somewhere in history, especially in the footsteps of Romero’s, the living dead drift away from the Caribbean island. It is solely another cultural movement in history that erases the Black contribution, such as happened to Oscar Micheaux, jazz, and rock music. In the Western world, Black contributions get diminished by the status quo, becoming a mere footnote, and condemned to a rediscovery in the following decades. Above all else, documentaries like this one attempt to unveil the historic materiality of the creation of this iconic figure, even if Bedward’s structure is an inconsistent one. 

In Black Zombie, director Maya Annik Bedward attempts to shine the light on the contribution of Haitian culture in the creation of zombies. Based on Voodoo, it became a concept distorted by a white writer, and later remodeled by a filmmaker who positioned the Black man as its villain during the peak of a segregated America. Even if Bedward showcases a difficult time, crafting a structure that spotlights three different perspectives: Haiti, zombies on Film, and racial discourse, the film delivers a fascinating provocation of a horror figure that most audiences may be unaware of, its Black origins. Not a novelty, they are a constant of history.  

still courtesy of Hot Docs

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Pedro Lima

Brazilian film writer. He is also a producer and executive producer for Zariah Filmes. Member of the International Film Society Critics Association (IFSCA), International Documentary Association (IDA), and Gotham and Media Film Institute.