As a horror fan, one of my favorite things about the genre is that its films are actually so much bigger than gremlins, ghouls, guts, and gore. A documentary that captures this beautifully is Black Zombie, directed by Maya Annik Bedward. The film charts the history of the zombie, from the fields of Haiti — vodou priests and priestesses — to the twisted-up lore that visiting White folks brought back home. 

While modern zombie flicks may have lost these racial connotations, learning the origins of these creature features will make you see the zombie movies with fresh eyes. Bedward arrived at Black Zombie out of pure curiosity, she explained to Dread Central. “A lot of my personal passions have stemmed from me wanting to have a better sense of where I come from and my ancestry,” the filmmaker told me over Zoom.

“I’m a history nerd, and I was always really frustrated in school when I wanted to learn more about Black history, especially here in the Americas before colonialism,” she continued. “Often, people would say we just don’t have a record of that, and I found that really frustrating.” This led her to learn more about diasporic practices such as Santería, Obeah, and vodou. Bedward was shocked, just like I was watching her documentary, to find the connection between zombies and Haitian vodou.

“I was like, ‘How do I not know that?”,” adding that she was “blown away” to discover how Hollywood had taken the zombie myth, run away with it, and caused vodou and other African Traditional Religions (ATRs) to be misconstrued as evil.

Can Horror Ever Get ‘Witchcraft’ Right?

Anyone in the Global West whose spiritual practices fall outside the Abrahamic religions faces an uphill battle. Social acceptance is low, and often movies don’t help. For pagans, it took until 1996 to get a film like The Craft. While the movie may be imperfect in its depiction of the practice — something Wiccans were loud about at the time — witches these days generally like The Craft, with many citing the film as a key source of empowerment. 

Notably, director Andrew Fleming hired Gardnerian Wicca priestess Pat Devin as a consultant for The Craft. Because of her, the spells you see in the film are based on real Wiccan incantations. Similarly, Ryan Coogler hired Yvonne Chireau to be his hoodoo consultant for Sinners. Chireau, a professor in both the Black studies and religion departments at Swarthmore College, wrote an influential book in the space, Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition.

Overall, however, the pickings are slim when it comes to representation of ATRs in media. For example, despite the blessing of Brandy on my screen, I cringed while watching I Still Know What You Did Last Summer because of its portrayal of voodoo. Recently, I threw a Summerween party where we screened zillennial cult classic Scooby-Doo (2002). The movie is still cute, but I hated the Voodoo Maestro’s entire existence in that film. (You can argue that all of the live-action Scooby-Doo is ripe with orientalism and neocolonialism, but that’s a different story for a different day.)

From a decidedly Black perspective, Rituals, a short film from the ’80s starring Jennifer Lewis and Regina King, gets close to being an even-keeled portrayal of voodoo or hoodoo. But there’s still a vengefulness there that feels uncomfortable.

The Future of Horror Can be Black

For the North American African diaspora, I can only really recommend Daughters of the Dust and Eve’s Bayou, the latter directed by Candyman star Kasi Lemmons — along with Sinners. Bedward acknowledged that “Sinners did things a little bit differently,” but added, “I would love to see more Haitian filmmakers being supported to actually portray vodou authentically, the way they experience it in their communities.”

In an ideal world, Bedward said, “Vodou and other African traditional religions are not the things that are used to scare, or for the fear factor… We need to really stop doing that, and start respecting it as a religion and a way of seeing the world.” For the documentarian, one of the coolest parts of showing Black Zombie, especially at horror movie festivals like Fantasia, has been that no one wants to talk about zombies.

Audience members instead want to discuss Black history and religion’s representation in media. Along with calling out 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead as seminal zombie franchises, as a millennial, Bedward highlighted 2019’s Atlantics, directed by Mati Diop. As a creative, it’s heartening to hear this near-universal reaction to Black Zombie, especially when, according to Bedward, so many people thought the director would never pull off her idea.

“’We understand what you’re trying to do, but this is too big. The scope of this is too big,’” she recalled. Still, it was crucial to get it done for Bedward and movie-lovers alike. “This film shows you how much history gets repeated, and repeated, and repeated. It’s hard to break out of the cycle and the legacy of colonialism,” Bedward said.

As she works on her next documentary and narrative feature film, you can check out Bedward’s Black Zombie in theatres starting Friday, Sept. 11, 2026.

Tags:Black Horror Black Zombie Documentaries Zombies

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