Before zombies shuffled through malls or stumbled across TV screens, they meant something else entirely. Not monsters. Victims.

Maya Annik Bedward’s BLACK ZOMBIE digs into the buried history of the undead, tracing the figure back to colonial Haiti, where it was born as a living symbol of slavery and stolen will. The documentary, which premiered at SXSW, unpacks how Hollywood took a metaphor rooted in Black spiritual tradition and transformed it into one of the most profitable horror tropes of all time.

Bedward revisits iconic films like WHITE ZOMBIE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, and THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW, weaving in archival footage and interviews with cultural historians, artists, and genre legends including Slash, Tom Savini, and Mambo Labelle Déesse. The result is part cultural reckoning, part horror remix.

The film opens September 11 in New York and Los Angeles via Kino Lorber, with a national rollout to follow. It’s a rare documentary that works as both film criticism and an act of reclamation, offering horror fans a deeper understanding of where the zombie really came from, and what it used to mean.