‘Black Zombie’ Review: An Engaging Doc on How the Flesh-Eating Hordes of Screen Fame Obscured Painful Real-Life History
Maya Annik Bedward’s Canadian documentary “Black Zombie” explores that surprise evolution. But hers isn’t a genre fan’s focus so much as a cultural...
Key points
- Maya Annik Bedward’s Canadian documentary “Black Zombie” explores that surprise evolution.
- But hers isn’t a genre fan’s focus so much as a cultural anthropologist’s eye, honing in on how the screen zombie has exploited and distorted the Haitian religious beliefs that provided its initial inspiration.
- Romero’s 1968 sleeper smash “Night of the Living Dead.” At neither speed, however, do they have much to do with the zombie’s prior, much-less-frequent pulp appearances.
- It soon got fictionalized as the post-“Dracula” Bela Lugosi vehicle “White Zombie” (1932), then in other films, notably the Val Lewton-produced “I Walked With a Zombie” a decade later.
What happened
Maya Annik Bedward’s Canadian documentary “Black Zombie” explores that surprise evolution. But hers isn’t a genre fan’s focus so much as a cultural anthropologist’s eye, honing in on how the screen zombie has exploited and distorted the Haitian religious beliefs that provided its initial inspiration. Romero’s 1968 sleeper smash “Night of the Living Dead.” At neither speed, however, do they have much to do with the zombie’s prior, much-less-frequent pulp appearances. It soon got fictionalized as the post-“Dracula” Bela Lugosi vehicle “White Zombie” (1932), then in other films, notably the Val Lewton-produced “I Walked With a Zombie” a decade later. (It is suggested that depriving laborers of salt intake might have had such stupefying effects.) Horror fans may be disappointed that the later waves of zombie cinema get rather fleeting address here, though we do hear from legendary gore FX maestro Tom Savini and the late Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” co-writer John Russo. While “Black Zombie” isn’t quite the genre “greatest hits” parade many viewers may be hoping for, it does provide a thought-provoking perspective — one that might add some depth to your next experience of undead...
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