Black Zombie (2026) Movie Script
1
[insects chirping]
[wind howling]
[speaking French]
[dark, moody music]
[horn honks,
heavy street traffic]
[thunder cracks]
[woman, in English]
There is this long history
and fascination
with zombies in American
cinema.
Zombies is all about
the power beyond the grave.
[thunder cracks]
Something that
you don't understand,
that a scientist can't explain.
There's nothing left
of the corpse
but brains and limbs, but still,
it functions.
You could be perfectly fine
one minute,
and be intact the next minute.
It wants me!
[Tananarive] This idea that
things turn unexpectedly,
and that you have to be ready
to run.
[panicked shouting]
That's the scariest thing.
[glass shatters]
[Slash] Something about that
relentless thing
that the zombies represent,
where they just,
nothing stops them.
[gunshot cracks]
-[thudding blow]
-Oh.
Chardonnay.
[shrieks]
[gunshot cracks]
They don't die,
and they just keep coming.
[squelching]
[growling]
[Slash] The zombies typically
rolls very slowly.
You can run as fast
as you wanted,
they would always kill you.
[shouting]
[Slash] Zombies have become
really popular
in modern culture.
Well, howdy strangers!
Twelve years
of The Walking Dead.
The Last of Us streaming on HBO.
[zombie shrieks]
People's taste for it
is obviously insatiable.
-[growls]
-[Tananarive] But why are people
so hungry for it?
It didn't happen
with werewolves.
It's just a really
compelling idea.
You know, your loved ones
are not there anymore
and there are these
shuffling things
that will bite you
and make you into one of them.
Almost like mass culture
and opaciously consuming.
[growls]
[Cussans] The main things
about the zombie,
and why it's got such
an enduring appeal
is that it raises questions
about autonomy and agency.
You can hear me.
Yes.
[Cussans] How much
autonomy do we have?
How in control are we
of our minds,
of our desires,
of our consciousness?
I think the story
of zombies is tragedy.
[hissing exhale]
These films ask us to think
about who we are
when we are devoid
of our spirit.
[wood creaks, zombie groans]
It makes so much sense
that the idea of a zombie
would come from a tradition
of people who were enslaved.
That they would be able
to imagine
what it is to be
confined and imprisoned
on a physical level
and on a spiritual level
as well.
Stop!
[Thea] I think that it's time
for people to put
the zombie in its
historical context.
If we know where it comes from,
it brings up why we are
portraying zombies as we are.
[Tananarive] There are a lot
of people who love zombies now,
who have no idea of its roots.
[crickets chirping]
[distant chatter]
[motorbike hums past]
[match strikes]
[speaking French]
[ethereal music]
[ethereal music continues]
[motorbike hums]
[birds chirping]
Ah! [laughing]
[birds chirping]
[music turns dark]
[wind howling]
[man shouting]
[insects trilling]
[man continues shouting]
[tools scraping and chopping]
[man continues shouting]
[Kaiama in English] Saint Domingue,
which is the original name
of a French Haitian colony,
was, by far, the most lucrative
of the European colonies,
period.
People made to work,
by any means necessary,
to produce that wealth.
[whip snaps]
Every aspect of European life
was fused with the wealth
that was generated
by enslavement.
[speaking French]
[Kaiama in English]
Saint Domingue has often been
described as something
of a "powder keg"
that just by the sheer force
of numbers of enslaved
versus non-enslaved people,
meant that the measures
for repression
had to be incredibly brutal
to overcome that disparity.
[motorbikes humming]
[man singing
in foreign language]
[speaking French]
[indistinct excited shouting]
[rhythmic traditional music]
[indistinct chattering]
[singing]
[speaking French]
[mystical ethereal]
[singer vocalizing]
[music quickens]
[rhythmic ethereal music]
[music stops]
[wind howling]
[insects buzzing]
[somber music]
[waves crashing]
[soft soulful music]
[whispering voices]
[chittering]
[ominous whoosh]
[ethereal vocalizing]
[ominous undulating music]
[wind howling]
[thunder booming]
[old film reel scratching]
[reporter in English]
[stately music]
[radio audience claps]
William Seabrook
is a not-so-well-known now
travel writer and adventurer,
who wrote The Magic Island,
which introduced the zombie
into Western culture.
And yeah,
a very eccentric figure,
and notorious, a cultist,
and sadomasochist,
and alcoholic,
who had a very wild life.
[Joe] His news stories were
like,
"How I Escaped From
the Giant Clam".
That was literally,
like, one of the titles
of his news stories.
So, he was a sensational writer.
[mysterious piano music]
[Joe] I started
researching him,
and then it just became
a bit of an obsession.
I did graphic novel
biography of him.
[pencil scratching]
"The Abominable Mr. Seabrook".
Seabrook wanted to write a book
about voodoo,
And his editor said no white
man
could write a book about
voodoo.
So, he took that as a
challenge.
He moved to Haiti.
Tried to ingratiate himself
in voodoo circles.
[overlapping singing and voices]
He's one of those white guys
that wants to, like,
be part of the thing
that is not part of his culture.
[eerie music]
[Cussans] William Seabrook heard
rumors
about this thing
called the zombie.
He'd passed them off
as local superstition.
Nothing to do with Vodou.
[man] Huh?
[Cussans] But someone he was
speaking to said,
"Oh, no, no, it's very real."
Huh?
Polynice is a farmer who
tells Seabrook about zombies.
He goes, you know, this is not
some old-fashioned thing
that used to happen,
this is happening today.
[eyelids creak]
Seabrook says that's like
vampires working for Shell Oil,
or something.
[machete chopping]
Polynice takes them to a field.
These workers,
they're harvesting cane.
He tries to speak to them.
There's not much response,
just you know,
kind of blank eyes.
He's shaken up
after he sees this.
He believes it.
[pencil scratching]
[old-timey reporter]
[Seabrook]
[reporter]
[old-timey news jingle]
This is the National
Broadcasting Company.
[curious music]
[Joe] The Magic Island
was published in 1929,
and it was a best-seller.
[page flipping]
It's credited with first usage
of "zombie"
in the English language.
The Magic Island made Seabrook
pretty wealthy.
The film rights were sold
to Hollywood
and it was adapted
into "White Zombie".
[Cussans] The first
zombie film, White Zombie,
basically introduced
the Western world
to the figure of the zombie.
They are not men.
They are dead bodies!
Zombies.
Corpses taken from their graves.
Or made to work sugar mills.
Thieves at night.
[Tananarive] White Zombie
is about a couple of travelers,
a white man and his fiance.
Their host is nefarious
and has designs on the woman.
[Cussans] The white zombie
of the title
is put under the spell
of the zombie master.
Her soul is gone.
I can't bear those empty,
staring eyes.
[Tananarive] The crux of it is
that this power
that has been used to help fuel
sort of labor,
is being misused now,
to try to win this woman.
My darling,
what have they done to you?
[Cussans] The zombie figure
became a motif for a few years,
until the 1940s.
It played on the fear
of voodoo sorcery,
and that some people can
manipulate humans
and turn them into living dead.
Zombies?!
Yes, they are my servants.
The great fear
in early zombie cinema
is not so much that
you'll be attacked by a zombie,
but that you'll become one.
It's all about creating fear
for white characters.
The scariest thing
that can happen to you,
as the white traveler,
is that you visit this island
of uncivilized natives,
and become infected
with their zombiism.
And then you lose your agency
and control to Black natives.
[curious music continues]
[music fades]
[whispering voices]
[Kaiama] The zombie is adjacent
to Vodou,
but not part of Vodou.
Meaning that Vodou
is a fully developed
and complex
spiritual phenomenon,
cultural reality,
that involves possession
by divine spirits
that enact realities
in the quotidian of
individuals.
The zombie is a phenomenon
of dispossession.
You're not empowered,
or strengthened, or inhabited
by something greater than
yourself,
you're denied yourself.
Something is removed from you
to make you less than
who you were before.
Which is the exact opposite
of the Vodou faith.
Where the two sort of intersect
is through the sorcerer,
or the Houngan,
the individual who can
practice magic, essentially,
with the way it's understood,
with the right hand,
which is magic for good
and for service
as part of faith,
or with the left hand,
which sort of this kind of
corrupt or perverted.
It's like, the side hustle
for a bad sorcerer,
type of thing. Like, I do
zombification on the side.
But it's really something
separate from the faith
in which Haitian individuals
and communities are steeped.
[intriguing piano music]
[music fades]
[singing in foreign language]
My name is La Belle Desse Jr.
I'm a fourth generation
Haitian Vodou Priestess,
born and raised in Haiti.
[singing in foreign language]
I was chosen by the spirits.
When I was 15 years old,
I got possessed
for the first time
while my mom was having
a ceremony for someone.
[melancholic music]
Vodou is a part of who we are.
It's an identity
that we have within us.
It's in our DNA.
Most Haitian people
are Catholics and Vodouisants
at the same time,
but they believe
they're more Catholic
than Vodouisant,
because the Vodou
is always hidden.
[soft ethereal music]
[birds chirping]
[speaking French]
[ethereal music continues]
[La Belle in English]
Back in the days,
when our ancestors did it,
if the slave masters
would come along
and find them doing something
that had to do with Vodou,
they would get hanged
or get killed.
So, that's how everything
got incorporated.
The Catholic prayer,
Catholic images.
They used it to cover
while they were doing
their own Haitian
Vodou ceremonies.
They were protecting themselves
and they had
to hide behind a veil.
[church bell tolling]
[Cussans] After
the colonial periods,
practicing Vodou was illegal
under the constitution of Haiti.
The anti-sorcery legislation
of the Haitian constitution
was used to justify
arresting Vodouisants
throughout the country.
[crowds shouting]
[soldiers marching in unison]
The United States occupied
Haiti from 1915 to 1934.
[bomb blasts]
During that time,
Vodou became a means
of manipulating the population
and forcing them to work
to build the infrastructure.
[gunshot blasts]
The American Marines
could go into villages
and arrest people and
say you're practicing Vodou,
that's illegal
under the constitution.
You've got to come with us
and we're going to make you
do forced labor.
[Kaiama] You had these sort of
work gangs.
People who were pressed
into service,
either via criminality
or loitering,
or any number of kind of
flimsy excuses
to be obliged to work
for the Americans.
[Cussans] The people that
Seabrook met,
who assumed to be zombies,
they were working
for the Haitian American
Sugar Corporation,
which used them forced labor
under the American
military occupation.
For many Haitians,
this was a return
to the state of slavery.
The correlation there
is very precise
between slavery, zombiedom,
and the colonial
plantation economy.
But Seabrook himself
didn't extrapolate that.
Didn't seem to make
too much of it.
[Seabrook in English]
[Joe] I think all of the tropes
that you see
in portrayals of Vodou in film
and literature
are there, in The Magic Island.
Seabrook, he writes a film
that is full of racist imagery.
The illustrations
by Alexander King are racist.
The Magic Island
is incredibly influential
on the North American
perception of voodoo,
and it kind of set the tone.
We start to see depictions
of Black people as zombies,
somehow related to voodoo.
Whether it's the Voodoo witch
that can have power over you
as a white person,
or the voodoo doll.
That if you make a doll
that looks like somebody,
and you stick it with a pin...
you could cause them pain.
[reciting spell]
-[Costello] What's she doing?
-She's making voodoo.
-[eerie beat]
-Ooh!
Hollywood didn't have
a lot of nuance
when it came to depicting
Black religion and zombies.
One of the voodoo people got
into your house last night.
[rhythmic spiritual music]
[Tananarive] They literally
saw Blackness as evil.
And our religion as evil.
Gee, Peter, how do you ever
expect to get to heaven
with one foot
in the voodoo houmfort,
and the other in the church?
Aw, get along with ya.
Some of this native nonsense.
[Tananarive]
Blackness and voodoo
became the monstrosity
of the story.
[Tananarive] The contemporary
zombie is unrecognizable
from its roots in Haiti.
[tense music]
[chuckling]
A zombie is, is a creature
that only cares about
eating you.
There's nothing on their mind.
Their whole way, their whole
purpose for being here
is simply to kill you.
[snarling]
I love the teeth,
I love the eyes.
I love the intensity
of the gaze,
and the, uh... quirks.
[snarls]
[Leanne roars]
[woman laughs]
Ooh, you're so scary!
[Leanne] A scary thing
is to think about the idea
of everybody coming back to life
from the dead
and crawling out of the ground.
[growls]
[Leanne] If you think about
Michael Jackson's "Thriller"
and the way that they all kind
of came up and came together.
I think it's interesting
to think about
dealing with your past,
or dealing with
the undead part of your history.
[thunder booms]
[somber music]
It's very direct
how the contemporary,
flesh-eating zombie
came into existence,
and that was George A. Romero's
film,
"Night of the Living Dead".
Came out in 1968.
They're coming
to get you, Barbara.
Look, there comes
one of them now!
[Cussans] He's coming
to get you, Maya...
[laughing]
[woman] No! No! No!
[Cussans] Suddenly, a new
version of the zombie
enters everybody's
popular imagination.
Good Lord.
[Cussans] A ravenous,
risen-from-the-grave,
apocalyptic subhumans.
People gradually forgot
that there'd been anything
about voodoo sorcery
to do with the zombie,
and it became just this
voracious ghoul thing.
[growling]
It's just so unique and original
and shocking for its time.
It's still shocking
when you watch it.
[woman shrieks]
[sinister music]
[growling]
Eh, didn't scare me
much when I was a kid.
Zombies, when I was a kid,
White Zombie, and whatever,
they weren't heavy,
white-fright material.
All zombies did in those movies
is try to strangle somebody
or throw somebody
against the wall.
That was about it.
They just weren't very scary
until we made them flesh-eaters.
This is the main cast and crew
of Night of the Living Dead.
And this picture was taken
in the yard of the farmhouse.
And this is me, John Russo.
And this is George Romero.
George was the one
that convinced us
we could make movies
in Pittsburgh.
We thought we would maybe make
some kind of
science fiction thing,
but found out
we just couldn't afford
to show any kind of
saucer landing,
or that was too much, you know?
So, we had to come up
with some kind of
straight horror idea.
I said, "Well, why don't we use
my flesh-eating idea?"
He said, "That's good."
We were inventing
these flesh-eating zombies
as we went along.
[Tananarive] Zombies in
Night of the Living Dead
were much deadlier than their
zombie predecessors.
[growling]
They could literally
rip your guts out.
Just because they wanted to.
Not because someone
told them to.
Their whole mission
and existence was to attack you.
[thunder cracks]
[Slash] Night of the Living Dead
was probably
the first official zombie movie
that I can really recall seeing.
[Slash] I went in
with my mom and her girlfriend
to a drive-in.
That was the first movie
I ever saw
that genuinely scared me.
That had me really sort of
like,
hiding behind the seats,
you know?
[Russo] When the picture
opened,
they had to turn people away
from the drive-ins.
Cars were backed up
out on to the main highway.
They started pulling
more prints,
and everywhere it went,
Cleveland, Philadelphia,
New York, everywhere,
the figures were huge.
[Thea] Night of the Living Dead
became a cult classic.
These images from that film,
of the zombies
and the girl eating the bugs,
and everything,
are just so engrained
in our culture.
[movie reporter] Wave of
murder which is sweeping
the eastern third of the nation
is being committed by creatures
who feast upon the flesh
of their victims.
Night of the Living Dead
looked like a news broadcast.
[flame roars]
It was gritty, black and white.
It was like what you were
watching every night.
Crimes and horrible things
that were happening
were coming to you
in your living room TV.
And here's Night
of the Living Dead
that looked the same.
So, it was very real, I think.
It had a very real
feeling to it.
[movie reporter] All law
enforcement agencies,
and the military,
have been organized
to search out and destroy
the marauding ghouls.
[Romero] I worked
in television so long,
that maybe it's just
an important part
of my background.
If I have people
on the television
not really answering
the question,
but making it more confusing,
that's conscious.
That's been the conscious part
of that.
Because that's generally
what it's about, you know?
"Ladies and gentlemen,
there was just a plane crash.
It took out a small piece
of Manhattan. More later."
[eerie music]
[Tananarive] Night of
the Living Dead
really had its finger
on the pulse
of cultural fears
that were shifting
in the wake
of the Civil Rights Act,
the assassination of Malcolm X
and Kennedy.
If you were in the white
audiences
and you're worried about
these racial gains,
and what does this Civil Rights
Act mean?
Are they going to take
all our jobs,
and take all our women,
or whatever the fears were?
That's what the zombies
seemed like to you.
And when you put on top of that
a Black lead in Duane Jones,
it's really
pushing those buttons.
[dramatic music]
[Tananarive] Romero always said
that he didn't really
intentionally place a Black man
at the center of this story
to further frighten people,
although in retrospect,
I think it's one of the reasons
we're still talking about
that movie the way we do today,
is because of that casting.
[sinister music]
[Tananarive] There's this moment
where she opens the door,
and there's Duane Jones
standing there,
and behind him
is one of these ghouls.
And for a split second,
it's almost like
she doesn't know who's the one
I'm supposed to be afraid of,
right?
[lock clunks]
[Romero] In Night
of the Living Dead,
the character,
if you read the script...
It's all right.
...the character
is never described
in terms of his color.
And Duane was the best actor
that we knew
from among our friends,
which is where
we cast that film,
the way we cast that film.
And so, he did the part.
Now, consciously, we, I resisted
writing new dialogue
because he happened to be Black.
[police siren wails]
[Tananarive] One of the most
lingering moments is the ending.
We've been with
Duane Jones' character
through this entire film.
We've seen him behave
with intelligence,
quick thinking, with authority.
He should be rewarded for that.
But instead, white mobs
out looking for zombies...
[dogs barking]
Those same German Shepherds
that were in Selma,
in Birmingham.
[gunshots crack]
And the guns.
He's the lone survivor
in the house,
standing by the window,
awaiting rescue.
All right, hit him in the head,
right between the eyes.
[gunshot cracks]
Good shot! Okay, he's dead.
Let's go get him.
That's another one for the fire.
[Tananarive] The white mobs
shoot him dead.
It's a real punch
in the stomach.
[man] All right,
send the wagons through.
That ending had to be very
devastating for Black audiences.
[somber music]
[Romero] People have written
about these films and say,
well, if you really look deep
underneath,
you'll find these things.
And I don't think
they're deep underneath at all.
They're sort of right there
in your face.
[crowd shouting]
[Tananarive] My late mother,
Patricia Stephens Due,
loved horror.
She always had those
old Universal
black and white movies on.
Creature from the Black Lagoon,
Wolfman, you name, it,
vampires, zombies, whatever.
But as I've gotten older,
I now understand better
that my mother's love for horror
was not the same as me going,
"Whee! Monsters!"
I really think that it was
her way of grappling
with state violence
that she suffered
during the Civil Rights Era
in the 1960s.
She was a young college student
in 1960.
She and several students
conducted a sit-in
at a Woolworth lunch counter
in Tallahassee, Florida.
They were all arrested.
And my mom spent
49 days in jail.
And while she was taking part
in a non-violent protest...
[men shouting indistinctly]
...a police officer threw a
tear gas canister in her face.
And for the rest
of her adult life,
she wore dark glasses.
So, that was a very visible
scar
and a visible reminder
of her trauma
that she always lived with.
And it's like,
all these years later,
it's like oh yes,
she had all this anger,
she had all this fear,
which is the real fear.
So, I think horror, for my mom,
was a huge outlet
in letting go of fear,
letting go of trauma.
And as I've gotten older,
it serves that function for me,
consciously more and more,
and not just something
that I think is fun.
[studio audience laughing]
This is--
Brother! Good Lord!
Stop playing with his tongue.
[laughs]
[Tom] I got a telegram
from George and it said,
"Hey, we got another gig.
Start thinking of ways
to kill people."
And it was "Dawn of the Dead".
Now, if you've seen
Dawn of the Dead,
80 percent of that is stuff
that I came up with.
[woman] Tell me what
you're doing right now.
Okay, these are
foam Latex appliances
I'm sticking on his face.
He's a zombie.
Or people that have died
in interesting ways.
Or not interesting ways,
just people who have died
and come back to life.
You know, the old movies
didn't have any gore.
Frankenstein, Dracula,
there's not a drop of blood.
No fangs.
I think audience
expect gore now.
It's almost like they feel like
they're going to disappoint
an audience
if they don't show it.
We went from black and white
with circles over their eyes,
to half their face is missing.
It became a gorefest.
[gunshot blasts]
[growls]
[screaming]
[screaming]
I mean the first effect
in Dawn of the Dead
was when the guy bites a chunk
out of his wife.
You know, the cast and crew
were laughing,
and then applauding.
"Is that what this
is going to be like?"
You know, this is the first
thing in the movie?
What's the rest of it? You know,
we're blowing off heads.
[screams]
[tense synth music]
The guy that gets the top
of his head cleaned off
with a helicopter blade,
that got applause
in the theatre.
I mean, my name for a while,
which I don't like anymore,
is "The King of Splatter",
"The Wizard of Gore".
You know, just "Maestro"
would be fine.
[man screaming]
[flesh squelching]
When we're creating this stuff,
we're not thinking about
"This is too much".
We're making it
as outlandish as possible.
[film crew chatting
indistinctly]
[Tom] And you know,
George really went for that.
[film crew applauding]
[ship horn bellows]
[cat mews]
[Zandosh] Any filmmaker
who's dealing in horror,
I think it should always be
a question of intention.
You know, why are you showing
the thing that you're showing?
For many people,
it is going to be, you know,
"I just want a physical reaction
to something gross."
Our Father who is Heaven,
give us this day--
[Zandosh] But you know, as
someone who depicts films
about Black people on screen,
I have to be very intentional
about showing harm be done
to Black bodies, because we are
so desensitized to it.
[ghostly whispers]
[girl] Mama?
Mama?!
I have described my films
as being in the canon
of Black Southern gothic horror.
And what that means to me,
at least,
is combining these themes
about loss, and death,
and decay, and transformation,
and seeing that through
the eyes of Black people
who have lived and grown up
in the South.
Because that's, you know,
that's my lens.
[soft music]
[woman] Excuse me?
There's a real history
of extractivism
with Black stories in films
and in television.
And I think it's really
important for anyone,
anyone who wants to tell
a story, to make a film,
to make a song,
to create something,
to understand what it is about
that creation
that they connect to
in some way.
[dramatic news program music]
Zombies, the living dead,
have for years been the staple
ingredient of second-rate
horror movies.
But is there any truth
behind the Hollywood fantasies?
A couple of years ago,
Newsnight took a look
behind the cinema clichs,
and found that on
the West Indian island of Haiti,
truth is indeed stranger
than fiction.
People are transformed
into the living dead
as a voodoo punishment.
[eerie music]
[Cussans] Everyone had kind of
forgotten about
the Haitian roots
of the zombie figure.
But it came back
into popular imagination
because of these discoveries
of these real-life
zombies in Haiti.
[reporter] This man
is a zombie.
He died,
or so his family thought.
He was buried, but then exhumed,
and sent off to slavery.
The potion that
put him into this state
contains a deadly poison.
A poison that American
scientists now believe
could hold new clues
to the nervous system,
and open up the possibility
of human hibernation.
[Cussans] In the early 80s,
the Canadian ethnobotanist,
Wade Davis, was employed
by his university
to go to Haiti,
to check out the reality
of this zombie potion
that could make people go
into a death-like state,
and they could then be
resurrected and walk around,
as if they were alive.
I was a graduate student
at Harvard
under Professor
Richard Evans Schutles.
And one day he just asked
if I was interested
in going down to Haiti
for a couple of weeks.
So, my very narrow task
was to go to Haiti,
see if I could find someone
who would make the preparation,
and then bring back
the ingredients.
If a poison did exist in Haiti
that could quote, unquote,
make zombies,
it had tremendous
medical possibilities.
I went down to Haiti and I
became absolutely appalled
at the chasm between
what I experienced of Vodou,
of the beauty of the faith,
and the explicitly racist way
the Haitian zombie had been
used
to denigrate an entire people.
[applause]
[Davis] And I'll never forget
the first day I arrived
in Haiti in 1982.
I attended a Vodou ceremony,
where I experienced something
that had eluded me
in four years in the Amazon,
and that was a window,
truly wide open,
to the mystic. Responding--
Wade Davis wrote one
of the most influential books
about zombies,
The Serpent and the Rainbow.
[gentle piano music]
He wrote that book
in a film noir,
adventure story detective style.
Throughout
Serpent and the Rainbow,
Wade Davis represents himself
as a kind of white
adventurer figure
going into remote lands
and encountering dangerous,
exotic beings.
And this is very much
in keeping with the,
what's called
the "white savior complex".
[gentle piano music continues]
[Joe] There is a parallel
with Wade Davis and Seabrook.
I think they're both drawn
to exploring other cultures
and travel,
and trying to connect.
With Seabrook,
he's always thrown himself
into the middle of the story.
And yeah, Wade Davis
does the same thing.
The book was like
an Indiana Jones,
Boy Zone adventure story.
He was willing to go into
the heart of darkness
and return
with the voodoo secrets
that he'd stolen
from the sorcerer, if you like.
[Davis] This is a memento.
He kept this sample
of the drug used
to make zombies.
I just keep it
as I keep mementos
of all the journeys I've made.
My book was a very legitimate
and sincere attempts
to make sense out of sensation.
I don't think there's anything
that perpetuated
a stereotype about zombies.
The film made of The Serpent
and the Rainbow absolutely does.
[ominous beat]
He then sold the book
to Hollywood
who went and made a horror film
version of his book.
A very controversial film
by the director
of Nightmare on Elm Street,
Wes Craven.
[pounding ominous music]
[narrator] From Wes Craven,
director of
A Nightmare on Elm Street.
[whooshing]
[shouts]
Comes a story
of the forbidden world
between life and death,
The Serpent and the Rainbow.
Which did exactly what
horror films do,
which is to accentuate
the most negative,
sinister, dark sides of Vodou.
Ow!
And create another racist
stereotypical picture.
[soft music]
[Joe] All of the racist tropes,
the savagery of it all,
just all comes out
in these adaptations.
Just like Seabrook's
White Zombie.
He lost control
of the narrative.
[speaking French]
[growling, shouting]
[screaming]
Portrayal of Haiti is like,
this is a terrifying place.
Don't go there. They're going
to nail your nuts to a chair.
[hammer clangs, screaming]
Even at the moment
when the film tries
to celebrate Vodou,
that immediately gets turned
into a love scene
between the white protagonist
and the Black researcher.
It's like the only time
we get to see Vodou
in a somewhat positive light
is just so he can get laid.
[Cussans] The white hero figure
has sex
with his doctor informant
from the hospital in a cave.
And then during the night,
he's visited by a zombie
with a tiny little voodoo doll,
which has a snake jump out
of his face.
[screaming]
[Tananarive] You can't even imagine
why anyone in their right mind
would follow a faith
that looked like this, right,
the way it's depicted
in the film.
It's like a circus sideshow.
[flesh rips, man screams]
Of course, everybody held me
responsible for the fact
that Wes Craven and Universal
made a horror movie.
Of course,
I had no control whatsoever.
I never spoke badly
about the film
because, you know,
it bought me a house.
And I've never really been back
to Haiti since the revolution.
And I focused four years
of my life on Haiti.
You know, I lived there
off and on for two years
and spent two years
writing books.
I never set out to be
a Haitian expert.
I simply moved on.
[fire crackling]
[motorbikes hum past]
[singing in foreign language]
[all singing]
[speaking French]
[crowd shouting and cheering]
[rhythmic drumming]
[unsettling music]
[evil laughter]
[gunshots]
[soft intriguing music]
[Slash in English] I think
Vodou for me was all
sort of fun and games
as a kid growing up.
And I,
like with most horror stuff,
I was fascinated by it.
I was obsessed with it.
My mom was very spiritual,
so she believed in Vodou.
You know, I met some
of the practitioners and stuff
that she saw, so, I was always
under the impression
that it was a very delicate
line you could cross
into a darker plane.
But that magic, in general,
didn't all have to be bad,
you know?
[La Belle] In Canada, we have
close to 250,000 Haitian
altogether, growing every day.
Out of the 250,000, I would say
most of us are Vodouists,
but then we will not admit
to being a Vodouisant
because they're afraid
of being judged.
[speaking Haitian French]
[speaking French]
-Merci.
-Merci.
[La Belle in English] Being a
Vodouisant is who you are.
That's your identity.
And you shouldn't
have to hide it
just because you're afraid of
what people will say about you.
[footsteps clacking]
[rhythmic drumming]
When I first started
practicing, I was afraid.
It took a little while before
I could sort of
break down this notion of Vodou
being associated with fear.
The tourism industry
in New Orleans
is centered around these, like,
heinous depictions of Vodou.
We pass through a bunch
of voodoo shops
with, like, cheap little dolls
and things like that.
People have built
an entire industry
out of the tropes that have been
created about Vodou.
I would say anyone who finds
themselves demonizing Vodou
should really look inward
and ask where that comes from
and who taught them
to see it in that way.
[singing in foreign language]
[La Belle in English] The moment
you say "Vodou",
they don't want to hear
anything.
They think about
sticking pins into a doll
and next thing you know,
you're going to kill me.
Next thing you know,
you're going to destroy my life.
Next thing you know,
I'm no longer the same person
because you're going to do
voodoo on me.
They think you're able
to turn them into a zombie.
[loud street chatter,
distant music]
To me, zombie is just
a business.
It's not really Vodou itself.
[eerie music]
People would take different
stories about Haitian Vodou
and slavery and put them
together to make money.
[speaking French]
Merci.
[wind howling]
[insects chirping]
[strange music building]
[eerie ethereal music]
[ominous music cuts in]
[ethereal music resumes]
[thunder booms]
[heavy, undulating music]
[sinister music swells]
[machete slices]
[loud explosions]
[Kaiama in English]
The Haitian Revolution
started in 1791
and ended officially
on January 1st, 1804.
It was a war
for the abolition of slavery
and for the granting
of civil rights
to those who lived
in the colonies
under enslavement.
[Cussans] On the night
in August in 1791,
a group of slaves gathered
and performed a ceremony.
An oath was sworn to overthrow
their white colonial regime.
And that kick-started
the Haitian Revolution.
[fire crackling]
[whispering voices]
The broad strokes of it
are a Vodou ceremony
that happened in an area
known as the Bois Caman.
Bois meaning woods,
and Caman meaning caiman,
as in an alligator
that was indigenous to Haiti.
This is the origin story
of this revolutionary moment
that Haitians go back to
as the source
of their ultimate refusal
to remain bound
in this enslaved state.
And it's grounded very much
again in Vodou,
in spirituality,
in appeal to the gods
that watch over
the Haitian people
in their daily life to this
day.
[speaking French]
[grass rustling]
[mystical music]
[music fades]
[fire crackling]
[Kaiama in English]
The Haitian people
brought a European empire
to its knees
in ways that were unprecedented
and set quite the example
for enslaved populations
elsewhere in
the American hemisphere.
[undulating ethereal music]
[speaking French]
[cannons blasting]
[in English] Most people
don't know about
the Haitian Revolution
because of very deliberate
silencing of that past.
[indistinct shouting]
[Cussans] Colonial powers
had to make sure
that the ideas of emancipation
didn't spread,
and they had to make
Haiti a failure.
[somber music]
After the Haitian Revolution
and the Declaration
of Independence,
most of the major
international powers
refused to trade with Haiti.
So, it couldn't continue
exporting the products
which had made it wealthy
in the first place.
Haiti was then crippled
economically.
In the early part
of the 19th century,
one of the Haitian presidents
had to make a deal with France
that France would continue
trading with Haiti,
if Haiti paid reimbursements
to pay back the slaveholders.
Which it didn't finish
paying off 'til 1948.
[speaking French]
[soft ethereal music]
[motorbike rumbles past]
[street traffic honks]
[bike whooshes past]
[Kaiama in English] The more
you can render people monstrous
or claim that
it's their behavior
that calls for punishment,
essentially,
then the less you have
to feel guilty
about your practices
as an individual,
as a community, as a state.
The zombie is a useful
tool for that.
Oh, these people are out there
in Haiti
sacrificing people and turning
people into living dead.
We're justified in taking
over their banks.
It can't be really
underestimated,
the ways in which culture
can do the work of statecraft.
[speaking French]
[drums beating quickly]
[in English] I thought Vodou
was something
everyone was frightened of.
[screaming]
They're getting
a little voodoo on us.
[speaking French]
[in English] Juarita, is it true
there is to be
a sacrifice tonight?
Sacrifice?
Who's sacrificing what?
[drums beating]
[singing in foreign language]
[Cussans] One of the dominant
tropes in the voodoo
horror narrative
is the ritual ceremony
deep in the woods,
late at night,
the sound of drums.
The demon African god,
which culminates
in a human sacrifice, usually.
[women shriek]
Often this human sacrifice
will be a white woman.
Well, surely you don't think
she's alive
in the hands of natives?
Oh no, better dead than that.
[La Belle] In the ceremony
of Bois Caman,
a lot of people always
confuse the ritual
as if it was to make a pact
with the devil,
rather to protect the tribe
that was going to war.
[man] They got together and
swore a pact to the devil.
They said, we will serve you
if you'll get us free
from the French.
-Hmm.
-It's a true story.
But ever since,
they have been cursed
by one thing after the other,
desperately poor.
[Kaiama] Right after
the earthquake, a number
of folks argued that
what had happened to Haiti
was sort of a punishment
for Vodou, for this ceremony.
So, this idea that somehow
Bois Caman forever doomed
Haitians because of the blood
sacrifice of a pig.
[La Belle] The Haitian
Revolution is what a lot
of people hate Haiti
and Haitian people for.
Who were we,
Blacks with nothing?
No guns and to be able
to fight this big war...
and to win. But we did it.
When you do not have control
of something, it's powerful.
[Zandosh] It's by design
that we understand Vodou
and any Black spiritual
practices as something demonic.
Anything that is able
to place power
into the hands of Black people,
spiritual power,
you know, it's scary.
[flames crackling]
[woman] Whether the power comes
from the Vodou
or the power just
comes from the gathering,
it's still power,
and that's what makes it
frightening.
[shrill beat]
[evil laughter]
[screams]
[man] The fear of zombies and Vodou
is all about fear of Blackness.
[demonic scream]
Of emerging Black power
and not knowing
what to do to confront it.
Whose funeral is it?
-Yours.
-[gasping]
[marching band plays]
[Tananarive] And what's really
underlying the fear,
what's really underlying it,
is fear of payback.
That we will rise up
and do to you
what was done to us.
[snake rattles]
[sinister music building]
[music winds down]
[waves rushing]
[ethereal music]
[speaking French]
[singer vocalizing softly]
[gentle birdsong]
[birdsong continues]
[singing in foreign language]
[birds chirping]
[singing in French]
[birds chirping]
[rhythmic drumming]
[ethereal music]
[Zandosh in English]
The more that I deepen
my spiritual practice
and the more that I deepen
my creative practice,
I'm able to recall the stories
that are in my blood,
in my body, in my ancestry.
[rhythmic drumming continues]
There's power in that,
because otherwise,
they would have been lost.
[woman screams in film]
Stories give us the power
to correct histories,
to imagine the future.
[woman] Let me in! Let me in!
Stories give back to us
what was taken.
[sinister music swells]
Lead us home.
[gasps]
[rapid gunfire]
[shouts and squeals]
The zombie thing
seems to be sticking around
a lot longer
than the possible next stage
of what horror movies
are going to be.
[George] Part of the culture,
they become almost
as familiar as vampires.
-[zombie screeches]
-You know, I half expect
to see The Count
on Sesame Street
developed a relationship
with a zombie, you know?
[indistinct chatter]
[snarls]
[Thea] I never thought
the zombie walk
would get as big as it gets.
By the end of the walk,
I was getting
around 15,000 zombies.
[loud shouts and growls]
And that spawned
many more zombie walks
throughout the world.
[Steve Harvey] Name something
you know about zombies.
[buzzer chimes]
Christy.
- Black.
-[buzzer honks]
-They're Black. Okay.
-[audience laughing]
The Black zombies!
[growling]
[squelching]
-You have no right!
-[gunshot cracks]
[roars]
Over time, Hollywood horror
has created
the metaphorical zombie.
They're not Black,
but I would argue
that they represent otherness
and they represent
the invasion of otherness.
[gunshot blasts]
[zombies growling]
[Kaiama] Zombie films remind me
of the extreme measures we take
to keep other people out.
[grunting]
And so, when you see
kind of like
hordes of people
pressing up against a wall
or trying to open a building.
Trying to get to
nice white people
and their families.
-All right.
-[zombies growling]
[Kaiama] If you've just seen
like a zombie horde
in World War Z.
[rapid gunfire]
And then you also open
the New York Times
and you see a picture
of 80 migrants in a boat
meant for four people,
you can't help but make
these kinds of associations
between what you're seeing
in popular media and what
you're seeing in the news.
[plane zooms past]
I see the zombie horde
as being this projection
of people who are suffering.
Because they're bent
on destruction,
it is legitimate to kill them.
-[rapid gunfire]
-To wall them in
or wall them back.
What you end up with
in American culture
is something far removed
from the Haitian zombie,
but that serves
as a weird bridge
and an inaccurate bridge
to that culture.
[strange ethereal music]
[wind howling]
[strange ethereal music
continues]
[music stops abruptly]
[director] Cut!
[film crew chattering
in foreign language]
[in English] I think he was
a bit more forward.
[speaking French]
[indistinct chatter]
[applause]
[soft music]
[motorbikes hum]
[Vodouisants singing
in foreign language]
[La Belle in English]
We're not asking people
to go and serve.
We're asking people
to educate yourself,
to know the story.
[singing in foreign language]
[speaking French]
[all singing]
[uplifting music]
[laughter]
[indistinct chatter]
[gulls squawking]
[waves crash]
[soulful ethereal music]
[spiritual singing
in foreign language]
[spiritual singing continues]
[music]
[insects chirping]
[wind howling]
[speaking French]
[dark, moody music]
[horn honks,
heavy street traffic]
[thunder cracks]
[woman, in English]
There is this long history
and fascination
with zombies in American
cinema.
Zombies is all about
the power beyond the grave.
[thunder cracks]
Something that
you don't understand,
that a scientist can't explain.
There's nothing left
of the corpse
but brains and limbs, but still,
it functions.
You could be perfectly fine
one minute,
and be intact the next minute.
It wants me!
[Tananarive] This idea that
things turn unexpectedly,
and that you have to be ready
to run.
[panicked shouting]
That's the scariest thing.
[glass shatters]
[Slash] Something about that
relentless thing
that the zombies represent,
where they just,
nothing stops them.
[gunshot cracks]
-[thudding blow]
-Oh.
Chardonnay.
[shrieks]
[gunshot cracks]
They don't die,
and they just keep coming.
[squelching]
[growling]
[Slash] The zombies typically
rolls very slowly.
You can run as fast
as you wanted,
they would always kill you.
[shouting]
[Slash] Zombies have become
really popular
in modern culture.
Well, howdy strangers!
Twelve years
of The Walking Dead.
The Last of Us streaming on HBO.
[zombie shrieks]
People's taste for it
is obviously insatiable.
-[growls]
-[Tananarive] But why are people
so hungry for it?
It didn't happen
with werewolves.
It's just a really
compelling idea.
You know, your loved ones
are not there anymore
and there are these
shuffling things
that will bite you
and make you into one of them.
Almost like mass culture
and opaciously consuming.
[growls]
[Cussans] The main things
about the zombie,
and why it's got such
an enduring appeal
is that it raises questions
about autonomy and agency.
You can hear me.
Yes.
[Cussans] How much
autonomy do we have?
How in control are we
of our minds,
of our desires,
of our consciousness?
I think the story
of zombies is tragedy.
[hissing exhale]
These films ask us to think
about who we are
when we are devoid
of our spirit.
[wood creaks, zombie groans]
It makes so much sense
that the idea of a zombie
would come from a tradition
of people who were enslaved.
That they would be able
to imagine
what it is to be
confined and imprisoned
on a physical level
and on a spiritual level
as well.
Stop!
[Thea] I think that it's time
for people to put
the zombie in its
historical context.
If we know where it comes from,
it brings up why we are
portraying zombies as we are.
[Tananarive] There are a lot
of people who love zombies now,
who have no idea of its roots.
[crickets chirping]
[distant chatter]
[motorbike hums past]
[match strikes]
[speaking French]
[ethereal music]
[ethereal music continues]
[motorbike hums]
[birds chirping]
Ah! [laughing]
[birds chirping]
[music turns dark]
[wind howling]
[man shouting]
[insects trilling]
[man continues shouting]
[tools scraping and chopping]
[man continues shouting]
[Kaiama in English] Saint Domingue,
which is the original name
of a French Haitian colony,
was, by far, the most lucrative
of the European colonies,
period.
People made to work,
by any means necessary,
to produce that wealth.
[whip snaps]
Every aspect of European life
was fused with the wealth
that was generated
by enslavement.
[speaking French]
[Kaiama in English]
Saint Domingue has often been
described as something
of a "powder keg"
that just by the sheer force
of numbers of enslaved
versus non-enslaved people,
meant that the measures
for repression
had to be incredibly brutal
to overcome that disparity.
[motorbikes humming]
[man singing
in foreign language]
[speaking French]
[indistinct excited shouting]
[rhythmic traditional music]
[indistinct chattering]
[singing]
[speaking French]
[mystical ethereal]
[singer vocalizing]
[music quickens]
[rhythmic ethereal music]
[music stops]
[wind howling]
[insects buzzing]
[somber music]
[waves crashing]
[soft soulful music]
[whispering voices]
[chittering]
[ominous whoosh]
[ethereal vocalizing]
[ominous undulating music]
[wind howling]
[thunder booming]
[old film reel scratching]
[reporter in English]
[stately music]
[radio audience claps]
William Seabrook
is a not-so-well-known now
travel writer and adventurer,
who wrote The Magic Island,
which introduced the zombie
into Western culture.
And yeah,
a very eccentric figure,
and notorious, a cultist,
and sadomasochist,
and alcoholic,
who had a very wild life.
[Joe] His news stories were
like,
"How I Escaped From
the Giant Clam".
That was literally,
like, one of the titles
of his news stories.
So, he was a sensational writer.
[mysterious piano music]
[Joe] I started
researching him,
and then it just became
a bit of an obsession.
I did graphic novel
biography of him.
[pencil scratching]
"The Abominable Mr. Seabrook".
Seabrook wanted to write a book
about voodoo,
And his editor said no white
man
could write a book about
voodoo.
So, he took that as a
challenge.
He moved to Haiti.
Tried to ingratiate himself
in voodoo circles.
[overlapping singing and voices]
He's one of those white guys
that wants to, like,
be part of the thing
that is not part of his culture.
[eerie music]
[Cussans] William Seabrook heard
rumors
about this thing
called the zombie.
He'd passed them off
as local superstition.
Nothing to do with Vodou.
[man] Huh?
[Cussans] But someone he was
speaking to said,
"Oh, no, no, it's very real."
Huh?
Polynice is a farmer who
tells Seabrook about zombies.
He goes, you know, this is not
some old-fashioned thing
that used to happen,
this is happening today.
[eyelids creak]
Seabrook says that's like
vampires working for Shell Oil,
or something.
[machete chopping]
Polynice takes them to a field.
These workers,
they're harvesting cane.
He tries to speak to them.
There's not much response,
just you know,
kind of blank eyes.
He's shaken up
after he sees this.
He believes it.
[pencil scratching]
[old-timey reporter]
[Seabrook]
[reporter]
[old-timey news jingle]
This is the National
Broadcasting Company.
[curious music]
[Joe] The Magic Island
was published in 1929,
and it was a best-seller.
[page flipping]
It's credited with first usage
of "zombie"
in the English language.
The Magic Island made Seabrook
pretty wealthy.
The film rights were sold
to Hollywood
and it was adapted
into "White Zombie".
[Cussans] The first
zombie film, White Zombie,
basically introduced
the Western world
to the figure of the zombie.
They are not men.
They are dead bodies!
Zombies.
Corpses taken from their graves.
Or made to work sugar mills.
Thieves at night.
[Tananarive] White Zombie
is about a couple of travelers,
a white man and his fiance.
Their host is nefarious
and has designs on the woman.
[Cussans] The white zombie
of the title
is put under the spell
of the zombie master.
Her soul is gone.
I can't bear those empty,
staring eyes.
[Tananarive] The crux of it is
that this power
that has been used to help fuel
sort of labor,
is being misused now,
to try to win this woman.
My darling,
what have they done to you?
[Cussans] The zombie figure
became a motif for a few years,
until the 1940s.
It played on the fear
of voodoo sorcery,
and that some people can
manipulate humans
and turn them into living dead.
Zombies?!
Yes, they are my servants.
The great fear
in early zombie cinema
is not so much that
you'll be attacked by a zombie,
but that you'll become one.
It's all about creating fear
for white characters.
The scariest thing
that can happen to you,
as the white traveler,
is that you visit this island
of uncivilized natives,
and become infected
with their zombiism.
And then you lose your agency
and control to Black natives.
[curious music continues]
[music fades]
[whispering voices]
[Kaiama] The zombie is adjacent
to Vodou,
but not part of Vodou.
Meaning that Vodou
is a fully developed
and complex
spiritual phenomenon,
cultural reality,
that involves possession
by divine spirits
that enact realities
in the quotidian of
individuals.
The zombie is a phenomenon
of dispossession.
You're not empowered,
or strengthened, or inhabited
by something greater than
yourself,
you're denied yourself.
Something is removed from you
to make you less than
who you were before.
Which is the exact opposite
of the Vodou faith.
Where the two sort of intersect
is through the sorcerer,
or the Houngan,
the individual who can
practice magic, essentially,
with the way it's understood,
with the right hand,
which is magic for good
and for service
as part of faith,
or with the left hand,
which sort of this kind of
corrupt or perverted.
It's like, the side hustle
for a bad sorcerer,
type of thing. Like, I do
zombification on the side.
But it's really something
separate from the faith
in which Haitian individuals
and communities are steeped.
[intriguing piano music]
[music fades]
[singing in foreign language]
My name is La Belle Desse Jr.
I'm a fourth generation
Haitian Vodou Priestess,
born and raised in Haiti.
[singing in foreign language]
I was chosen by the spirits.
When I was 15 years old,
I got possessed
for the first time
while my mom was having
a ceremony for someone.
[melancholic music]
Vodou is a part of who we are.
It's an identity
that we have within us.
It's in our DNA.
Most Haitian people
are Catholics and Vodouisants
at the same time,
but they believe
they're more Catholic
than Vodouisant,
because the Vodou
is always hidden.
[soft ethereal music]
[birds chirping]
[speaking French]
[ethereal music continues]
[La Belle in English]
Back in the days,
when our ancestors did it,
if the slave masters
would come along
and find them doing something
that had to do with Vodou,
they would get hanged
or get killed.
So, that's how everything
got incorporated.
The Catholic prayer,
Catholic images.
They used it to cover
while they were doing
their own Haitian
Vodou ceremonies.
They were protecting themselves
and they had
to hide behind a veil.
[church bell tolling]
[Cussans] After
the colonial periods,
practicing Vodou was illegal
under the constitution of Haiti.
The anti-sorcery legislation
of the Haitian constitution
was used to justify
arresting Vodouisants
throughout the country.
[crowds shouting]
[soldiers marching in unison]
The United States occupied
Haiti from 1915 to 1934.
[bomb blasts]
During that time,
Vodou became a means
of manipulating the population
and forcing them to work
to build the infrastructure.
[gunshot blasts]
The American Marines
could go into villages
and arrest people and
say you're practicing Vodou,
that's illegal
under the constitution.
You've got to come with us
and we're going to make you
do forced labor.
[Kaiama] You had these sort of
work gangs.
People who were pressed
into service,
either via criminality
or loitering,
or any number of kind of
flimsy excuses
to be obliged to work
for the Americans.
[Cussans] The people that
Seabrook met,
who assumed to be zombies,
they were working
for the Haitian American
Sugar Corporation,
which used them forced labor
under the American
military occupation.
For many Haitians,
this was a return
to the state of slavery.
The correlation there
is very precise
between slavery, zombiedom,
and the colonial
plantation economy.
But Seabrook himself
didn't extrapolate that.
Didn't seem to make
too much of it.
[Seabrook in English]
[Joe] I think all of the tropes
that you see
in portrayals of Vodou in film
and literature
are there, in The Magic Island.
Seabrook, he writes a film
that is full of racist imagery.
The illustrations
by Alexander King are racist.
The Magic Island
is incredibly influential
on the North American
perception of voodoo,
and it kind of set the tone.
We start to see depictions
of Black people as zombies,
somehow related to voodoo.
Whether it's the Voodoo witch
that can have power over you
as a white person,
or the voodoo doll.
That if you make a doll
that looks like somebody,
and you stick it with a pin...
you could cause them pain.
[reciting spell]
-[Costello] What's she doing?
-She's making voodoo.
-[eerie beat]
-Ooh!
Hollywood didn't have
a lot of nuance
when it came to depicting
Black religion and zombies.
One of the voodoo people got
into your house last night.
[rhythmic spiritual music]
[Tananarive] They literally
saw Blackness as evil.
And our religion as evil.
Gee, Peter, how do you ever
expect to get to heaven
with one foot
in the voodoo houmfort,
and the other in the church?
Aw, get along with ya.
Some of this native nonsense.
[Tananarive]
Blackness and voodoo
became the monstrosity
of the story.
[Tananarive] The contemporary
zombie is unrecognizable
from its roots in Haiti.
[tense music]
[chuckling]
A zombie is, is a creature
that only cares about
eating you.
There's nothing on their mind.
Their whole way, their whole
purpose for being here
is simply to kill you.
[snarling]
I love the teeth,
I love the eyes.
I love the intensity
of the gaze,
and the, uh... quirks.
[snarls]
[Leanne roars]
[woman laughs]
Ooh, you're so scary!
[Leanne] A scary thing
is to think about the idea
of everybody coming back to life
from the dead
and crawling out of the ground.
[growls]
[Leanne] If you think about
Michael Jackson's "Thriller"
and the way that they all kind
of came up and came together.
I think it's interesting
to think about
dealing with your past,
or dealing with
the undead part of your history.
[thunder booms]
[somber music]
It's very direct
how the contemporary,
flesh-eating zombie
came into existence,
and that was George A. Romero's
film,
"Night of the Living Dead".
Came out in 1968.
They're coming
to get you, Barbara.
Look, there comes
one of them now!
[Cussans] He's coming
to get you, Maya...
[laughing]
[woman] No! No! No!
[Cussans] Suddenly, a new
version of the zombie
enters everybody's
popular imagination.
Good Lord.
[Cussans] A ravenous,
risen-from-the-grave,
apocalyptic subhumans.
People gradually forgot
that there'd been anything
about voodoo sorcery
to do with the zombie,
and it became just this
voracious ghoul thing.
[growling]
It's just so unique and original
and shocking for its time.
It's still shocking
when you watch it.
[woman shrieks]
[sinister music]
[growling]
Eh, didn't scare me
much when I was a kid.
Zombies, when I was a kid,
White Zombie, and whatever,
they weren't heavy,
white-fright material.
All zombies did in those movies
is try to strangle somebody
or throw somebody
against the wall.
That was about it.
They just weren't very scary
until we made them flesh-eaters.
This is the main cast and crew
of Night of the Living Dead.
And this picture was taken
in the yard of the farmhouse.
And this is me, John Russo.
And this is George Romero.
George was the one
that convinced us
we could make movies
in Pittsburgh.
We thought we would maybe make
some kind of
science fiction thing,
but found out
we just couldn't afford
to show any kind of
saucer landing,
or that was too much, you know?
So, we had to come up
with some kind of
straight horror idea.
I said, "Well, why don't we use
my flesh-eating idea?"
He said, "That's good."
We were inventing
these flesh-eating zombies
as we went along.
[Tananarive] Zombies in
Night of the Living Dead
were much deadlier than their
zombie predecessors.
[growling]
They could literally
rip your guts out.
Just because they wanted to.
Not because someone
told them to.
Their whole mission
and existence was to attack you.
[thunder cracks]
[Slash] Night of the Living Dead
was probably
the first official zombie movie
that I can really recall seeing.
[Slash] I went in
with my mom and her girlfriend
to a drive-in.
That was the first movie
I ever saw
that genuinely scared me.
That had me really sort of
like,
hiding behind the seats,
you know?
[Russo] When the picture
opened,
they had to turn people away
from the drive-ins.
Cars were backed up
out on to the main highway.
They started pulling
more prints,
and everywhere it went,
Cleveland, Philadelphia,
New York, everywhere,
the figures were huge.
[Thea] Night of the Living Dead
became a cult classic.
These images from that film,
of the zombies
and the girl eating the bugs,
and everything,
are just so engrained
in our culture.
[movie reporter] Wave of
murder which is sweeping
the eastern third of the nation
is being committed by creatures
who feast upon the flesh
of their victims.
Night of the Living Dead
looked like a news broadcast.
[flame roars]
It was gritty, black and white.
It was like what you were
watching every night.
Crimes and horrible things
that were happening
were coming to you
in your living room TV.
And here's Night
of the Living Dead
that looked the same.
So, it was very real, I think.
It had a very real
feeling to it.
[movie reporter] All law
enforcement agencies,
and the military,
have been organized
to search out and destroy
the marauding ghouls.
[Romero] I worked
in television so long,
that maybe it's just
an important part
of my background.
If I have people
on the television
not really answering
the question,
but making it more confusing,
that's conscious.
That's been the conscious part
of that.
Because that's generally
what it's about, you know?
"Ladies and gentlemen,
there was just a plane crash.
It took out a small piece
of Manhattan. More later."
[eerie music]
[Tananarive] Night of
the Living Dead
really had its finger
on the pulse
of cultural fears
that were shifting
in the wake
of the Civil Rights Act,
the assassination of Malcolm X
and Kennedy.
If you were in the white
audiences
and you're worried about
these racial gains,
and what does this Civil Rights
Act mean?
Are they going to take
all our jobs,
and take all our women,
or whatever the fears were?
That's what the zombies
seemed like to you.
And when you put on top of that
a Black lead in Duane Jones,
it's really
pushing those buttons.
[dramatic music]
[Tananarive] Romero always said
that he didn't really
intentionally place a Black man
at the center of this story
to further frighten people,
although in retrospect,
I think it's one of the reasons
we're still talking about
that movie the way we do today,
is because of that casting.
[sinister music]
[Tananarive] There's this moment
where she opens the door,
and there's Duane Jones
standing there,
and behind him
is one of these ghouls.
And for a split second,
it's almost like
she doesn't know who's the one
I'm supposed to be afraid of,
right?
[lock clunks]
[Romero] In Night
of the Living Dead,
the character,
if you read the script...
It's all right.
...the character
is never described
in terms of his color.
And Duane was the best actor
that we knew
from among our friends,
which is where
we cast that film,
the way we cast that film.
And so, he did the part.
Now, consciously, we, I resisted
writing new dialogue
because he happened to be Black.
[police siren wails]
[Tananarive] One of the most
lingering moments is the ending.
We've been with
Duane Jones' character
through this entire film.
We've seen him behave
with intelligence,
quick thinking, with authority.
He should be rewarded for that.
But instead, white mobs
out looking for zombies...
[dogs barking]
Those same German Shepherds
that were in Selma,
in Birmingham.
[gunshots crack]
And the guns.
He's the lone survivor
in the house,
standing by the window,
awaiting rescue.
All right, hit him in the head,
right between the eyes.
[gunshot cracks]
Good shot! Okay, he's dead.
Let's go get him.
That's another one for the fire.
[Tananarive] The white mobs
shoot him dead.
It's a real punch
in the stomach.
[man] All right,
send the wagons through.
That ending had to be very
devastating for Black audiences.
[somber music]
[Romero] People have written
about these films and say,
well, if you really look deep
underneath,
you'll find these things.
And I don't think
they're deep underneath at all.
They're sort of right there
in your face.
[crowd shouting]
[Tananarive] My late mother,
Patricia Stephens Due,
loved horror.
She always had those
old Universal
black and white movies on.
Creature from the Black Lagoon,
Wolfman, you name, it,
vampires, zombies, whatever.
But as I've gotten older,
I now understand better
that my mother's love for horror
was not the same as me going,
"Whee! Monsters!"
I really think that it was
her way of grappling
with state violence
that she suffered
during the Civil Rights Era
in the 1960s.
She was a young college student
in 1960.
She and several students
conducted a sit-in
at a Woolworth lunch counter
in Tallahassee, Florida.
They were all arrested.
And my mom spent
49 days in jail.
And while she was taking part
in a non-violent protest...
[men shouting indistinctly]
...a police officer threw a
tear gas canister in her face.
And for the rest
of her adult life,
she wore dark glasses.
So, that was a very visible
scar
and a visible reminder
of her trauma
that she always lived with.
And it's like,
all these years later,
it's like oh yes,
she had all this anger,
she had all this fear,
which is the real fear.
So, I think horror, for my mom,
was a huge outlet
in letting go of fear,
letting go of trauma.
And as I've gotten older,
it serves that function for me,
consciously more and more,
and not just something
that I think is fun.
[studio audience laughing]
This is--
Brother! Good Lord!
Stop playing with his tongue.
[laughs]
[Tom] I got a telegram
from George and it said,
"Hey, we got another gig.
Start thinking of ways
to kill people."
And it was "Dawn of the Dead".
Now, if you've seen
Dawn of the Dead,
80 percent of that is stuff
that I came up with.
[woman] Tell me what
you're doing right now.
Okay, these are
foam Latex appliances
I'm sticking on his face.
He's a zombie.
Or people that have died
in interesting ways.
Or not interesting ways,
just people who have died
and come back to life.
You know, the old movies
didn't have any gore.
Frankenstein, Dracula,
there's not a drop of blood.
No fangs.
I think audience
expect gore now.
It's almost like they feel like
they're going to disappoint
an audience
if they don't show it.
We went from black and white
with circles over their eyes,
to half their face is missing.
It became a gorefest.
[gunshot blasts]
[growls]
[screaming]
[screaming]
I mean the first effect
in Dawn of the Dead
was when the guy bites a chunk
out of his wife.
You know, the cast and crew
were laughing,
and then applauding.
"Is that what this
is going to be like?"
You know, this is the first
thing in the movie?
What's the rest of it? You know,
we're blowing off heads.
[screams]
[tense synth music]
The guy that gets the top
of his head cleaned off
with a helicopter blade,
that got applause
in the theatre.
I mean, my name for a while,
which I don't like anymore,
is "The King of Splatter",
"The Wizard of Gore".
You know, just "Maestro"
would be fine.
[man screaming]
[flesh squelching]
When we're creating this stuff,
we're not thinking about
"This is too much".
We're making it
as outlandish as possible.
[film crew chatting
indistinctly]
[Tom] And you know,
George really went for that.
[film crew applauding]
[ship horn bellows]
[cat mews]
[Zandosh] Any filmmaker
who's dealing in horror,
I think it should always be
a question of intention.
You know, why are you showing
the thing that you're showing?
For many people,
it is going to be, you know,
"I just want a physical reaction
to something gross."
Our Father who is Heaven,
give us this day--
[Zandosh] But you know, as
someone who depicts films
about Black people on screen,
I have to be very intentional
about showing harm be done
to Black bodies, because we are
so desensitized to it.
[ghostly whispers]
[girl] Mama?
Mama?!
I have described my films
as being in the canon
of Black Southern gothic horror.
And what that means to me,
at least,
is combining these themes
about loss, and death,
and decay, and transformation,
and seeing that through
the eyes of Black people
who have lived and grown up
in the South.
Because that's, you know,
that's my lens.
[soft music]
[woman] Excuse me?
There's a real history
of extractivism
with Black stories in films
and in television.
And I think it's really
important for anyone,
anyone who wants to tell
a story, to make a film,
to make a song,
to create something,
to understand what it is about
that creation
that they connect to
in some way.
[dramatic news program music]
Zombies, the living dead,
have for years been the staple
ingredient of second-rate
horror movies.
But is there any truth
behind the Hollywood fantasies?
A couple of years ago,
Newsnight took a look
behind the cinema clichs,
and found that on
the West Indian island of Haiti,
truth is indeed stranger
than fiction.
People are transformed
into the living dead
as a voodoo punishment.
[eerie music]
[Cussans] Everyone had kind of
forgotten about
the Haitian roots
of the zombie figure.
But it came back
into popular imagination
because of these discoveries
of these real-life
zombies in Haiti.
[reporter] This man
is a zombie.
He died,
or so his family thought.
He was buried, but then exhumed,
and sent off to slavery.
The potion that
put him into this state
contains a deadly poison.
A poison that American
scientists now believe
could hold new clues
to the nervous system,
and open up the possibility
of human hibernation.
[Cussans] In the early 80s,
the Canadian ethnobotanist,
Wade Davis, was employed
by his university
to go to Haiti,
to check out the reality
of this zombie potion
that could make people go
into a death-like state,
and they could then be
resurrected and walk around,
as if they were alive.
I was a graduate student
at Harvard
under Professor
Richard Evans Schutles.
And one day he just asked
if I was interested
in going down to Haiti
for a couple of weeks.
So, my very narrow task
was to go to Haiti,
see if I could find someone
who would make the preparation,
and then bring back
the ingredients.
If a poison did exist in Haiti
that could quote, unquote,
make zombies,
it had tremendous
medical possibilities.
I went down to Haiti and I
became absolutely appalled
at the chasm between
what I experienced of Vodou,
of the beauty of the faith,
and the explicitly racist way
the Haitian zombie had been
used
to denigrate an entire people.
[applause]
[Davis] And I'll never forget
the first day I arrived
in Haiti in 1982.
I attended a Vodou ceremony,
where I experienced something
that had eluded me
in four years in the Amazon,
and that was a window,
truly wide open,
to the mystic. Responding--
Wade Davis wrote one
of the most influential books
about zombies,
The Serpent and the Rainbow.
[gentle piano music]
He wrote that book
in a film noir,
adventure story detective style.
Throughout
Serpent and the Rainbow,
Wade Davis represents himself
as a kind of white
adventurer figure
going into remote lands
and encountering dangerous,
exotic beings.
And this is very much
in keeping with the,
what's called
the "white savior complex".
[gentle piano music continues]
[Joe] There is a parallel
with Wade Davis and Seabrook.
I think they're both drawn
to exploring other cultures
and travel,
and trying to connect.
With Seabrook,
he's always thrown himself
into the middle of the story.
And yeah, Wade Davis
does the same thing.
The book was like
an Indiana Jones,
Boy Zone adventure story.
He was willing to go into
the heart of darkness
and return
with the voodoo secrets
that he'd stolen
from the sorcerer, if you like.
[Davis] This is a memento.
He kept this sample
of the drug used
to make zombies.
I just keep it
as I keep mementos
of all the journeys I've made.
My book was a very legitimate
and sincere attempts
to make sense out of sensation.
I don't think there's anything
that perpetuated
a stereotype about zombies.
The film made of The Serpent
and the Rainbow absolutely does.
[ominous beat]
He then sold the book
to Hollywood
who went and made a horror film
version of his book.
A very controversial film
by the director
of Nightmare on Elm Street,
Wes Craven.
[pounding ominous music]
[narrator] From Wes Craven,
director of
A Nightmare on Elm Street.
[whooshing]
[shouts]
Comes a story
of the forbidden world
between life and death,
The Serpent and the Rainbow.
Which did exactly what
horror films do,
which is to accentuate
the most negative,
sinister, dark sides of Vodou.
Ow!
And create another racist
stereotypical picture.
[soft music]
[Joe] All of the racist tropes,
the savagery of it all,
just all comes out
in these adaptations.
Just like Seabrook's
White Zombie.
He lost control
of the narrative.
[speaking French]
[growling, shouting]
[screaming]
Portrayal of Haiti is like,
this is a terrifying place.
Don't go there. They're going
to nail your nuts to a chair.
[hammer clangs, screaming]
Even at the moment
when the film tries
to celebrate Vodou,
that immediately gets turned
into a love scene
between the white protagonist
and the Black researcher.
It's like the only time
we get to see Vodou
in a somewhat positive light
is just so he can get laid.
[Cussans] The white hero figure
has sex
with his doctor informant
from the hospital in a cave.
And then during the night,
he's visited by a zombie
with a tiny little voodoo doll,
which has a snake jump out
of his face.
[screaming]
[Tananarive] You can't even imagine
why anyone in their right mind
would follow a faith
that looked like this, right,
the way it's depicted
in the film.
It's like a circus sideshow.
[flesh rips, man screams]
Of course, everybody held me
responsible for the fact
that Wes Craven and Universal
made a horror movie.
Of course,
I had no control whatsoever.
I never spoke badly
about the film
because, you know,
it bought me a house.
And I've never really been back
to Haiti since the revolution.
And I focused four years
of my life on Haiti.
You know, I lived there
off and on for two years
and spent two years
writing books.
I never set out to be
a Haitian expert.
I simply moved on.
[fire crackling]
[motorbikes hum past]
[singing in foreign language]
[all singing]
[speaking French]
[crowd shouting and cheering]
[rhythmic drumming]
[unsettling music]
[evil laughter]
[gunshots]
[soft intriguing music]
[Slash in English] I think
Vodou for me was all
sort of fun and games
as a kid growing up.
And I,
like with most horror stuff,
I was fascinated by it.
I was obsessed with it.
My mom was very spiritual,
so she believed in Vodou.
You know, I met some
of the practitioners and stuff
that she saw, so, I was always
under the impression
that it was a very delicate
line you could cross
into a darker plane.
But that magic, in general,
didn't all have to be bad,
you know?
[La Belle] In Canada, we have
close to 250,000 Haitian
altogether, growing every day.
Out of the 250,000, I would say
most of us are Vodouists,
but then we will not admit
to being a Vodouisant
because they're afraid
of being judged.
[speaking Haitian French]
[speaking French]
-Merci.
-Merci.
[La Belle in English] Being a
Vodouisant is who you are.
That's your identity.
And you shouldn't
have to hide it
just because you're afraid of
what people will say about you.
[footsteps clacking]
[rhythmic drumming]
When I first started
practicing, I was afraid.
It took a little while before
I could sort of
break down this notion of Vodou
being associated with fear.
The tourism industry
in New Orleans
is centered around these, like,
heinous depictions of Vodou.
We pass through a bunch
of voodoo shops
with, like, cheap little dolls
and things like that.
People have built
an entire industry
out of the tropes that have been
created about Vodou.
I would say anyone who finds
themselves demonizing Vodou
should really look inward
and ask where that comes from
and who taught them
to see it in that way.
[singing in foreign language]
[La Belle in English] The moment
you say "Vodou",
they don't want to hear
anything.
They think about
sticking pins into a doll
and next thing you know,
you're going to kill me.
Next thing you know,
you're going to destroy my life.
Next thing you know,
I'm no longer the same person
because you're going to do
voodoo on me.
They think you're able
to turn them into a zombie.
[loud street chatter,
distant music]
To me, zombie is just
a business.
It's not really Vodou itself.
[eerie music]
People would take different
stories about Haitian Vodou
and slavery and put them
together to make money.
[speaking French]
Merci.
[wind howling]
[insects chirping]
[strange music building]
[eerie ethereal music]
[ominous music cuts in]
[ethereal music resumes]
[thunder booms]
[heavy, undulating music]
[sinister music swells]
[machete slices]
[loud explosions]
[Kaiama in English]
The Haitian Revolution
started in 1791
and ended officially
on January 1st, 1804.
It was a war
for the abolition of slavery
and for the granting
of civil rights
to those who lived
in the colonies
under enslavement.
[Cussans] On the night
in August in 1791,
a group of slaves gathered
and performed a ceremony.
An oath was sworn to overthrow
their white colonial regime.
And that kick-started
the Haitian Revolution.
[fire crackling]
[whispering voices]
The broad strokes of it
are a Vodou ceremony
that happened in an area
known as the Bois Caman.
Bois meaning woods,
and Caman meaning caiman,
as in an alligator
that was indigenous to Haiti.
This is the origin story
of this revolutionary moment
that Haitians go back to
as the source
of their ultimate refusal
to remain bound
in this enslaved state.
And it's grounded very much
again in Vodou,
in spirituality,
in appeal to the gods
that watch over
the Haitian people
in their daily life to this
day.
[speaking French]
[grass rustling]
[mystical music]
[music fades]
[fire crackling]
[Kaiama in English]
The Haitian people
brought a European empire
to its knees
in ways that were unprecedented
and set quite the example
for enslaved populations
elsewhere in
the American hemisphere.
[undulating ethereal music]
[speaking French]
[cannons blasting]
[in English] Most people
don't know about
the Haitian Revolution
because of very deliberate
silencing of that past.
[indistinct shouting]
[Cussans] Colonial powers
had to make sure
that the ideas of emancipation
didn't spread,
and they had to make
Haiti a failure.
[somber music]
After the Haitian Revolution
and the Declaration
of Independence,
most of the major
international powers
refused to trade with Haiti.
So, it couldn't continue
exporting the products
which had made it wealthy
in the first place.
Haiti was then crippled
economically.
In the early part
of the 19th century,
one of the Haitian presidents
had to make a deal with France
that France would continue
trading with Haiti,
if Haiti paid reimbursements
to pay back the slaveholders.
Which it didn't finish
paying off 'til 1948.
[speaking French]
[soft ethereal music]
[motorbike rumbles past]
[street traffic honks]
[bike whooshes past]
[Kaiama in English] The more
you can render people monstrous
or claim that
it's their behavior
that calls for punishment,
essentially,
then the less you have
to feel guilty
about your practices
as an individual,
as a community, as a state.
The zombie is a useful
tool for that.
Oh, these people are out there
in Haiti
sacrificing people and turning
people into living dead.
We're justified in taking
over their banks.
It can't be really
underestimated,
the ways in which culture
can do the work of statecraft.
[speaking French]
[drums beating quickly]
[in English] I thought Vodou
was something
everyone was frightened of.
[screaming]
They're getting
a little voodoo on us.
[speaking French]
[in English] Juarita, is it true
there is to be
a sacrifice tonight?
Sacrifice?
Who's sacrificing what?
[drums beating]
[singing in foreign language]
[Cussans] One of the dominant
tropes in the voodoo
horror narrative
is the ritual ceremony
deep in the woods,
late at night,
the sound of drums.
The demon African god,
which culminates
in a human sacrifice, usually.
[women shriek]
Often this human sacrifice
will be a white woman.
Well, surely you don't think
she's alive
in the hands of natives?
Oh no, better dead than that.
[La Belle] In the ceremony
of Bois Caman,
a lot of people always
confuse the ritual
as if it was to make a pact
with the devil,
rather to protect the tribe
that was going to war.
[man] They got together and
swore a pact to the devil.
They said, we will serve you
if you'll get us free
from the French.
-Hmm.
-It's a true story.
But ever since,
they have been cursed
by one thing after the other,
desperately poor.
[Kaiama] Right after
the earthquake, a number
of folks argued that
what had happened to Haiti
was sort of a punishment
for Vodou, for this ceremony.
So, this idea that somehow
Bois Caman forever doomed
Haitians because of the blood
sacrifice of a pig.
[La Belle] The Haitian
Revolution is what a lot
of people hate Haiti
and Haitian people for.
Who were we,
Blacks with nothing?
No guns and to be able
to fight this big war...
and to win. But we did it.
When you do not have control
of something, it's powerful.
[Zandosh] It's by design
that we understand Vodou
and any Black spiritual
practices as something demonic.
Anything that is able
to place power
into the hands of Black people,
spiritual power,
you know, it's scary.
[flames crackling]
[woman] Whether the power comes
from the Vodou
or the power just
comes from the gathering,
it's still power,
and that's what makes it
frightening.
[shrill beat]
[evil laughter]
[screams]
[man] The fear of zombies and Vodou
is all about fear of Blackness.
[demonic scream]
Of emerging Black power
and not knowing
what to do to confront it.
Whose funeral is it?
-Yours.
-[gasping]
[marching band plays]
[Tananarive] And what's really
underlying the fear,
what's really underlying it,
is fear of payback.
That we will rise up
and do to you
what was done to us.
[snake rattles]
[sinister music building]
[music winds down]
[waves rushing]
[ethereal music]
[speaking French]
[singer vocalizing softly]
[gentle birdsong]
[birdsong continues]
[singing in foreign language]
[birds chirping]
[singing in French]
[birds chirping]
[rhythmic drumming]
[ethereal music]
[Zandosh in English]
The more that I deepen
my spiritual practice
and the more that I deepen
my creative practice,
I'm able to recall the stories
that are in my blood,
in my body, in my ancestry.
[rhythmic drumming continues]
There's power in that,
because otherwise,
they would have been lost.
[woman screams in film]
Stories give us the power
to correct histories,
to imagine the future.
[woman] Let me in! Let me in!
Stories give back to us
what was taken.
[sinister music swells]
Lead us home.
[gasps]
[rapid gunfire]
[shouts and squeals]
The zombie thing
seems to be sticking around
a lot longer
than the possible next stage
of what horror movies
are going to be.
[George] Part of the culture,
they become almost
as familiar as vampires.
-[zombie screeches]
-You know, I half expect
to see The Count
on Sesame Street
developed a relationship
with a zombie, you know?
[indistinct chatter]
[snarls]
[Thea] I never thought
the zombie walk
would get as big as it gets.
By the end of the walk,
I was getting
around 15,000 zombies.
[loud shouts and growls]
And that spawned
many more zombie walks
throughout the world.
[Steve Harvey] Name something
you know about zombies.
[buzzer chimes]
Christy.
- Black.
-[buzzer honks]
-They're Black. Okay.
-[audience laughing]
The Black zombies!
[growling]
[squelching]
-You have no right!
-[gunshot cracks]
[roars]
Over time, Hollywood horror
has created
the metaphorical zombie.
They're not Black,
but I would argue
that they represent otherness
and they represent
the invasion of otherness.
[gunshot blasts]
[zombies growling]
[Kaiama] Zombie films remind me
of the extreme measures we take
to keep other people out.
[grunting]
And so, when you see
kind of like
hordes of people
pressing up against a wall
or trying to open a building.
Trying to get to
nice white people
and their families.
-All right.
-[zombies growling]
[Kaiama] If you've just seen
like a zombie horde
in World War Z.
[rapid gunfire]
And then you also open
the New York Times
and you see a picture
of 80 migrants in a boat
meant for four people,
you can't help but make
these kinds of associations
between what you're seeing
in popular media and what
you're seeing in the news.
[plane zooms past]
I see the zombie horde
as being this projection
of people who are suffering.
Because they're bent
on destruction,
it is legitimate to kill them.
-[rapid gunfire]
-To wall them in
or wall them back.
What you end up with
in American culture
is something far removed
from the Haitian zombie,
but that serves
as a weird bridge
and an inaccurate bridge
to that culture.
[strange ethereal music]
[wind howling]
[strange ethereal music
continues]
[music stops abruptly]
[director] Cut!
[film crew chattering
in foreign language]
[in English] I think he was
a bit more forward.
[speaking French]
[indistinct chatter]
[applause]
[soft music]
[motorbikes hum]
[Vodouisants singing
in foreign language]
[La Belle in English]
We're not asking people
to go and serve.
We're asking people
to educate yourself,
to know the story.
[singing in foreign language]
[speaking French]
[all singing]
[uplifting music]
[laughter]
[indistinct chatter]
[gulls squawking]
[waves crash]
[soulful ethereal music]
[spiritual singing
in foreign language]
[spiritual singing continues]
[music]