Check out the trailer for Maya Annik Bedward‘s BLACK ZOMBIE.

BLACK ZOMBIE digs beneath the blood-soaked spectacle of modern horror to uncover the zombie’s buried and unsettling origins. Long before it became associated with flesh-eating ghouls, the zombie was a living metaphor for slavery: not a monster, but the ultimate victim of colonial power. A symbol of stolen agency was recast as an object of fear, while Black spiritual traditions were distorted, sensationalized, and erased. Director Maya Annik Bedward traces the evolution of the zombie from colonial Haiti to contemporary Hollywood, reconsidering iconic films like White Zombie, Night of the Living Dead, and The Serpent and the Rainbow alongside archival footage, vérité scenes, and interviews with cultural historians, artists, and genre legends. Part cultural reckoning, part horror remix, BLACK ZOMBIE exposes how a figure born from enslavement, spiritual belief, and resistance was transformed into one of pop culture’s most profitable monsters.

The documentary features Yves-Grégory Francois, Tananarive Due, Mambo Labelle Déesse, Slash, Tom Savini, and Zandashé Brown.

BLACK ZOMBIE opens September 11 at the Quad Cinema in New York and Laemmle’s Nuart in Los Angeles, and will expand to select theaters nationwide.