Zombi Child
Film Movement | Release Date: January 24, 2020 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 17 Critic Reviews
Positive:
14
Mixed:
3
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
90
The New York TimesGlenn KennyJan 23, 2020
The movie’s inconclusiveness is the source of its appeal; Zombi Child is fueled by insinuation and fascination. Read full review
90
Screen DailyJonathan RomneyMay 24, 2019
Mixing political commentary, ethnography, teenage melodrama and genre horror, the film is an unashamedly cerebral study of multiple themes – colonialism, revolution, liberalism, racial difference and female desire - with its unconventional narrative structure taking us on a journey that’s as intellectually demanding as it is compelling. Read full review
88
Slant MagazineSam C. MacMay 17, 2019
Bertrand Bonello’s quixotic, slow-burn genre film is political largely in the abstract. Read full review
85
Paste MagazineAndrew CrumpJan 29, 2020
What makes the movie such a welcome surprise is Bonello’s creativity: Digging back nearly 60 years to trace an arc of trauma inherited through French colonialism takes as much chutzpah as imagination, the latter seen here mostly in the form of atmospheric horror homage. Read full review
83
The PlaylistJoe BlessingJan 21, 2020
Zombi Child is the rare film that’s both rich in ideas and fun, a reckoning with forces colonial powers would like buried, but that won’t stay dead. Read full review
80
Little White LiesElla KempNov 30, 2021
It gets under your skin, with the audacious and cunning mystique of a magician who always has one more trick prepared. Bonello leaves us hypnotised and hungrily begging for more. Read full review
80
Los Angeles TimesJustin ChangFeb 20, 2020
Even when the picture eludes your narrative grasp, its estimable craft — evident in the shadows of Yves Cape’s photography and the moody ambience of the score, which Bonello composed himself — exerts its own hypnotic pull. The director’s talent, as ever, is predicated on an avoidance of the obvious. Read full review
80
The TelegraphRobbie CollinMay 24, 2019
Zombi Child is the kind of lithe and lucid dream that gets its tendrils round your brain stem, so that when all hell finally breaks loose, you can’t jolt yourself awake from its grip. Read full review
75
Vanity FairK. Austin CollinsJan 27, 2020
I don’t find Bonello cold. I find him alert, alive, and frequently inspired—if unexpectedly limited, at times. Zombi Child amounts to a curiously fragmented display of his talent. But much of the good stuff is here. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comSimon AbramsJan 24, 2020
The new French voodoo/gothic drama Zombi Child is mostly satisfying, but also a little frustrating because of its creators’ walking-on-shells sensitivity. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreJan 22, 2020
It’s an utterly immersive Franco-Haitian gumbo, complete with flashbacks, “magic” as practiced by those who know “the old ways,” teen hormones and the zombi origin story. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyJan 21, 2020
The trappings of the boarding school, with its grand staircases, centuries-old cloisters, and self-serious teenage secrecy, are gothic. But Bonello nods just as much to American teen-anxiety horror. There is even an homage to Brian De Palma’s "Carrie." Read full review
75
IndieWireDavid EhrlichMay 24, 2019
If Zombi Child gets snared in a web of symbols and ideas that it never fully manages to weaponize in its favor...it still provides a bold and compelling bridge between the living and the dead. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd May 24, 2019
There are elements of coming-of-age drama, tortured romance, and supernatural horror, though part of the film’s strange power is that it never seems to commit to any of those genres, hovering in some liminal state instead, teasing the audience with the various possibilities of where it might go. Read full review
60
VarietyScott TobiasJan 24, 2020
The film can feel worked-over and schematic, as if Bonello was too preoccupied with serving the thesis to trust his peerless intuition. Read full review
60
CineVueMartyn ConterioMay 25, 2019
Zombi Child is a stirring and highly peculiar piece of work. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterJordan MintzerMay 24, 2019
The result feels like two incomplete movies in one, neither of them fully satisfying in the end. Still, there are some graceful moments scattered throughout, especially in the Haitian sequences, while it’s also rather refreshing to see a brand new take on a subject that’s been worked to death elsewhere. Read full review
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