And, and in the, in the doc, you do have one person who says, "Blackness and Vodou became the monstrosity of the story." Do you wanna talk a little bit about that, that central idea there?

Yeah.

I think that's really, like, talking back to these early 1930s films where, you know, often, sometimes it's set in Haiti, sometimes it's just some, you know, nondescript, ah, scary Caribbean island where there's this nefarious activity happening, and they're, you know, poking dolls with pins and, um, turning people into zombies.

And this is where, like, our understanding of Vodou, or voodoo, as black magic really stems from.

And it's in this context where we really get to see, like, this switch that happens in the conversations of zombies, and the thing to fear, like, is not actually being turned into a zombie, which is what most Haitians fear.

Like, you don't wanna [laughs] be re-enslaved.

Mm-hmm.

And it was a- an incredible event that happened that's just been completely erased from the history books.

We were talking about William, I think it's Seabrook's book, where it was the first beginning of that, but You know, you also have George Romero saying, you know, all these things, they seem to be hidden, but they were right there on the surface the whole time.

Yeah.

So, I mean, the U.S. occupation in Haiti is not something a lot of people are aware of.

But in the 30s, a lot of American soldiers and Americans were in Haiti and were taking a lot of stories and things they were hearing about voodoo and then kind of contorting them and putting them more in this, like, you know this idea of like sorcery and black magic and this kind of became like um a thread that uh came to the united states and william seabrook was someone who went to haiti and wanted to write about voodoo and actually became initiated in the religion um but you know there's a lot of um problems kind of sometimes in his approach of doing that.

And he wrote this one chapter in his book, the magic Island about zombies.

And that is what the very first Hollywood zombie was based after they adapted the film to make white zombie.

And so it's like Seabrook's story and telling of the zombie that kind of basically sparked this whole obsession of zombies in Hollywood.

But has it changed? Has it taken on its own life or is it still stealing from that cultural history?

How did you learn about the relationship between zombies and Haiti?

Mm-hmm.

I'm not Haitian myself, but my dad's Jamaican.

I'm from the diaspora, and I've always been really interested in learning more about where my ancestors came from before colonialism and learning more about our cultures that predate colonialism and who we were.

And I think a lot of that information is actually housed in a lot of spiritual practices that have come across the Atlantic.

So spiritual practices like you find in Haiti, Vodou or Santeria, Candomblé, Obeah, a lot of these practices house stories and knowledge about who our ancestors were.

So I was always very, very interested in learning more about these traditions.

Mm.

And

I would love people to learn more about the history of the Haitian Revolution and what happened to Haiti afterwards and the continuation of the attack on that country for this incredible revolution.

And I think one of the most important pieces of black liberation that we have like that's what i want out of the film so um yeah if you're a black filmmaker or not a black filmmaker making a film about zombies i think it's really important to know where it comes from so you're not like delving into some of the portrayals or the like the imagery that's born out of these early zombie films and re-perpetuating this same if you're like like please don't make any films about voodoo that where like if you're not um very like connected to the practice or like understand what it is and then like that i think is really important um so i don't know it's interesting like my favorite zombie film is atlantics by baddie diop and like it's not you know like it's it's not really born in the um like it's in the it's not housed in the spiritual practice of voodoo in any way but i think like um the undertones of it speak a lot to kind of similar themes of exploitation um but this is more through the migrant crisis and like uh the politics of being like a black person in these times and i think that's just by nature of being a black filmmaker you'll you'll probably delve into these these themes and yeah get out like get out i think is You know, for me, the ultimate zombie film.

But I don't think like I don't I don't know.

I'd love to talk to Jordan Peele about it.

If you have you have his number.

What if I did? But no, I really like when I when that film came out, like I'd already been working on this film.

I'm curious, has he seen the film and what did he think about it?

[laughs]

...

The Walking Dead, um, you know, that was what everyone watched back in the early 2000s.

And so the zombie's just, like, th- this household monster that everyone knows so well, and so it was really important for me to kinda start there, because that's something that everyone, you know, right away can recognize, "Oh, I know zombies." Um, but then, you know, bring them through this, um, journey and the storytelling to kind of, um, un- like, peel back all the layers of, of what happened to the zombie and, you know, where it really started.

And then from there kind of talk about the consequences of that.

[wind blowing] [upbeat music] There's this long history and fascination with zombies in American cinema.

[screams] [upbeat music] People's taste for it is insatiable.

And talk about that, but also, and I don't mean to interrupt, but the literal cost because you go through that, and we think of Haiti as a poor nation, and unfortunately it is, but that ain't by accident.

So can you talk a little bit about the, like, look of I Walked With a Zombie and how it relates to Black Zombie?

Mm.

Yeah.

Well, what, one of the things that inspired me to make this film is a specific, um, kind of like z- zombie story I wro- I read that was written by Rachel Bova, who is the daughter of a really famous Vodou priest from Haiti, from Port-au-Prince, and she wrote this story and in relation to this idea of this return that happens when you...

Like, one of the central pieces of Vodou is when you die, you kind of get to return to this, like, mythical Africa, this Adada, this Guinea, and reconnect with ancestors and the spirits.

And being turned into a vo- a zombie prevents this reconnection from happening.

And that story really moved me, um, this idea that not only could you lose your agency in the present as an enslaved person, but then even in the after- afterlife you could lose your agency, um, your spirit can be enslaved.

Mm

But basically, let's dive into what inspired you to make Black Zombie.

Yeah, as someone who's from the diaspora, the Black diaspora, someone who's trying to always learn more about my history and the culture and traditions of my ancestors before slavery, I've always been looking to find more information about this.

And in school, often I was told you know, there's no record of these cultures and traditions in this history.

But as I got older, I realized actually the record is very much housed in like a lot of the spiritual traditional practices that continue to exist today, like Vodou, Santeria, Obeah, Candomblé.

They really house a lot of the traditional knowledge and stories of the the ancestors who came, you know, who came from West Africa.

So I've always been learning more, wanting to learn more and research.

And then when I found out the zombie was connected to Haitian Vodou, I was completely shocked.

It really is one of those things you crack it open and it becomes a Pandora's box.

So what did you most want audiences to understand about the zombies' original cultural meaning?

Mm-hmm.

yeah I mean I wanted you know when I when I first found out where the zombie came from I was shocked that I did not know this like I was always very interested in learning more about um African traditional religious practices especially in the Black diaspora I think that so much of our history and culture is really preserved in those spaces and so like For a long time, I've been, you know, learning about Candomblé, about Vodou, about Santeria.

So I was surprised.

I didn't know the zombie came from Haitian Vodou.

Like I, when I found out, I was like, how do I know that? And then, you know, the more I would talk to people about it just like seemed like unless you're Haitian, you just don't know this.

And I just yeah, I was just really taken aback by that.

How did that awareness shape your filmmaking process?