I’ve been interested in zombies forever. At least since reading Monsters from the Movies in the 1970s and seeing an image from I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. That’s extended to lots of places as popular culture shifted its portrayal over the years including George Romero’s flesh eaters. You can listen to some of my thoughts as zombies found their way into Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing run here and here.
Director Maya Annik Bedard shares a similar fascination with zombies and how their loss of agency reflects on the history of the living. It’s reflected in her new film BLACK ZOMBIE which examines how zombies have been treated in popular culture, mostly movies but also the books The Magic Island and The Serpent and the Rainbow, and reestablishes connections to the origins of the zombie with the slave trade, Haiti, the Haitian Revolution, and vodou, and black culture in general.
That focus makes BLACK ZOMBIE a compelling watch. Yeah, I’m sure that some of the audience would prefer some of the greatest hits of the Romero films and SHAUN OF THE DEAD. And the Romero films are definitely in here. But, BLACK ZOMBIE is more concerned with films like WHITE ZOMBIE and, especially, I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE, being intertwined with the relationship to history. It’s certainly true that the loss of identity and agency is what white Hollywood picked up on and left aside the historical connections to the African experience, for the most part, and this serves well to put those connections back into the picture.
The film makes the point that the African experience with slavery had been largely erased. At least in the usual sense of a written history of first-hand experiences. The slave owners made sure of that. But, it doesn’t mean that the experience was completely erased. The history of vodou discusses how Catholic symbols were adopted into the religion to disguise their presence. The authorities couldn’t very well ban Catholic iconography while they themselves were Catholic. That camouflage explains how vodou was able to flourish despite attempts to stamp it out. Likewise, the Haitian slave experience lives on in the form of the zombie. It may mutate and adapt with the times, but the origin still has meaning. Romero may not have anticipated that his flesh eaters would take on the name zombie, but the casting of Duane Jones in NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD still took on a life of its own and perhaps had an unconscious link.
The fact that BLACK ZOMBIE is a movie about those sorts of ideas is the greatest strength of the film. Maya Annik Bedard wants you to consider those connections that have been right in front of you this whole time. She’s just providing you the framework to see them for yourself. The interconnected form of BLACK ZOMBIE, with history interspersed with the zombie in media, invites you to watch the documentary and then go watch a zombie film to see what connections you can make yourself.
It’s an interesting exercise. Although, I have some quibbles with I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE kind of being thrown in the same pile with WHITE ZOMBIE or ZOMBIES ON BROADWAY. Sure, it’s largely told from the perspective of the white stars at the forefront, but that film most certainly has the sin of slavery as a background note and makes several of the same points on how African slaves have been treated that BLACK ZOMBIE makes itself. Considering that BLACK ZOMBIE takes I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE as visual inspiration at points, it feels like an instance where simplicity triumphed over messier nuance. Not a deal-breaker or flaw to the central thesis, but a quibble I had. Along with most of the talking heads not being as impactful and charismatic as the material warrants. That includes Slash who doesn’t bring much insight to the proceedings, although maybe some star power. Still, BLACK ZOMBIE is the kind of exploration of culture and history that film is very good at and it’s an informative and entertaining watch. One of the highlights of the festival so far.
The 2026 Milwaukee Film Festival runs from April 16, 2026 until May 30, 2026. BLACK ZOMBIE plays once more at the film festival on April 24, 2026 at the Oriental Theatre at 9:45 pm. Tickets to BLACK ZOMBIE and other upcoming films can be purchased at MKEFILM.ORG.
