A Canadian documentary that pulls the screen zombie back to its roots in Haitian Vodou opens in North American cinemas on 11 September 2026. Kino Lorber will release Black Zombie in United States theatres; Raven Banner will handle the Canadian release, both on the same date, according to Variety.

Directed and written by Maya Annik Bedward — her feature debut — the film asks a question most horror fans have never considered: where did the zombie actually come from? The answer, as the documentary lays out, is Haiti. Specifically, the Vodou religion, whose beliefs Hollywood spent a century exploiting and distorting, according to Variety's review.

The trail begins with William Seabrook's 1929 book The Magic Island, which described Haitian labourers supposedly working in a trance state. That sensationalised account fed directly into White Zombie (1932), starring Bela Lugosi, the first fictional zombie film. Val Lewton's I Walked With a Zombie (1943) followed. Then, in 1968, George A. Romero's Night of the Living Dead gave the world the slow, shuffling, flesh-eating creature that has dominated screens ever since — a figure stripped almost entirely from its original cultural and religious context.

Black Zombie features commentary from scholars, historians, and Vodou priests to trace that erasure, Variety reports. The documentary argues that Hollywood's zombie portrayals reinforced superstitious racial stereotypes about Haitians and contributed to the pernicious idea that Haitians cannot govern themselves. Rather than leaving it at accusation, the film reclaims the zombie as a symbol of survival and spiritual resistance, according to its SXSW 2026 program description.

The film had its world premiere at the SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas, on 13 March 2026, The Hollywood Reporter confirmed. It also screened at the Thessaloniki Documentary Film Festival (TiDF28) later in 2026. Kino Lorber acquired U.S. distribution rights ahead of the theatrical run, as Deadline reported in June.

Bedward produced alongside Hannah Donegan and Kate Fraser, per Deadline's SXSW lineup coverage.

For a creature that has shuffled through everything from prestige horror to comedy, the lineage back to a living religion has rarely been examined on screen. Black Zombie arrives in cinemas on 11 September 2026 from Kino Lorber in the U.S. and Raven Banner in Canada.