Agatha, They Are Coming

by: Ucheyamere Nkwam-Uwaoma , February 6, 2024

Horror scholars like Barbara Creed (1993), Carol Clover (1992), Alison Peirse (2020), and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (2020) have extensively written about women in horror films, highlighting the contributions of women towards the production of horror films. However, white anglophone women have been at the centre of horror discourse, creating an absence of discussion about women filmmakers working outside of North American and European contexts. This is a significant gap. India’s Bollywood produces the most films per year, Nigeria’s Nollywood is second, and while Hollywood ‘may dominate screens and film profits on a global scale’ it is only third in the world in terms of the annual number of productions (Miller 2012: 117-118). This video essay is thus created to highlight the work of women on the Nollywood horror film Manifestation, (2021), which is written, produced, edited, and crewed by a range of women including Efe Irele, Mary Remmy Njoku, Saninye Alasia, Angel Alake, Okubadejo Olaide Favour, Gloria Akhimien, Kate Bassey, and Olaitan Adegun.

Efeilomo Michelle Irele (popularly known as Efe Irele) is an award-winning Neo-Nollywood Nigerian actress and producer. She features and produces Nigeria films and television series like Aso Ebi (2016), Blood Letters (2018), Hey You (2022), The House of Secrets (2023), while running a production company called ‘setwerk films’. Efe started as a model and was featured in Burna Boy’s music video for ‘Like to Party’ (2012) and Adekunle Gold’s music video for ‘Sade’ (2016) (‘Reporter’ 2018). Similarly, the women in the production of Manifestation have also been featured in various productions of Nollywood films. Irele is also an entrepreneur, recently launching the ‘Efe Irele Autism Foundation’. Deborah Oladapo writes that Efe ‘landed her first role in the 2016 Iroko TV series, Aso Ebi and gained more popularity when she acted the role of Keke in the 2017 Nollywood drama, The Real Side Chics alongside Nollywood star actors Desmond Elliot and Daniel Lloyd’ (2020). Though Manifestation is the only horror film she has made, while speaking to The Nation, she noted that ‘as a producer, one memorable movie for me is Manifestation. It is a horror movie, an amazing thriller which I enjoyed producing. Producing it was challenging, and I would say that my most memorable movies would be the most challenging ones’ (Oladeinde 2021).

Nollywood critics have variously argued that the first Nigerian horror film was Daughter of the River (1977), Evil Encounter (1983), and even Living in Bondage (1992) (Omipidan, 2015; Haynes 2016, p. xxi). While a few of Manifestation’s crew belong to the neo-Nollywood sphere, a term expanded by Samantha Iwowo (2020), the others belong to the traditional Nollywood sphere. While agreeing with Charles Novia (2012:124), Iwowo identifies ‘the section of industry operating within the cinema sphere as neo-Nollywood, and terms the makers of the home-video and direct-to-DVD movies as ‘‘traditional’’ Nollywood’ (2020:96). Whether you make the traditional- or neo-Nollywood distinction or not, what is apparent is that women including Helen Ukpabio, Patience Ozokwo, Margret Dele Olayinka, Patience Oseni, Camilla Mberekpe, Liz Benson, Regina Askia and Susan Patrick, have all been involved in the production of Nollywood horror films right from the genre’s inception in Nigeria.

Despite this, there is an inadequate discourse on Nigeria’s horror cinema and its representation of women on screen and behind the camera. Discussions about Nolly-horror (a term I am proposing to be used to describe Nigeria’s horror films) and its representation of women on screen have come up in passing by Nollywood scholars, who note the various ways women are presented in these films. Okome points out that women in Nollywood horror are portrayed as ‘prostitutes’ and used for ‘rituals’ (2007: 13) by mostly harvesting their private organs by the ritualists (for example, Domitilla, 1997). Wole Ogundele notes that women acting as evil mothers (witches) end up, in most Nigerian horror films, as saviours with whom rests the ultimate and mystical powers of rescuing the community (or the individual) when in dire straits, and of ensuring corporate happiness, peace, and survival (2000: 112). Ogaga Okuyade identifies women in Nollywood horror films as ‘Mamiwata’ (River goddess), witches, bloodsucking and flesh-eating human demons (2011: 6, 8). However, women with crucial roles in the production of Nolly-horror films are yet to be studied, not even Helen Ukpabio, who wrote and produced End of the Wicked (1999).

In Nollywood horror films, supernatural images are in the form of gods, ghosts, spirits, witchcraft, and monsters. Their central themes and plots include but are not limited to mortality, violent death, paranormal activities, unimaginable physical or spiritual changes or supernatural occurrences. These are geared towards eliciting or injecting fear into its audience or fans. For instance, the producers applied supernatural elements in Karashika (1998), End of the Wicked, Highway to the Grave (2000), Across the River 2 (2004), Idemili (2014), Nneka the Pretty Serpent (1994, 2020), and The Origin: Madam Koi-Koi (2023). Supernatural images reflected in most Nollywood horror films thus foster Nigeria’s cultural beliefs (Onoh 2015). This aligns with Onookome Okome’s 2007 notion of the Nollywood film industry, reflecting the societal beliefs of Nigeria as a nation. Jonathan Haynes remarks that the supernatural in Nigeria’s horror films is ‘engrained in Nigerian film culture and has been one of its defining and distinguishing attributes’ (2016: 109).

Manifestation centres on a group of young unemployed graduates who have just finished their service in the National Youth Service Corps and have decided to start a YouTube channel to make money and so survive in Nigerian society. These youths thus visit an abandoned secondary school building that is believed to be ‘ghost haunted’. According to local stories, Agatha, a ghost, is summoned or evoked by saying the words ‘Agatha, they are coming’ three times. The angry female ghost then kills those that summon her. This film draws upon the famous ‘Madam Koi Koi’, ‘bush baby’ and ‘headless braider’ stories told to secondary school students in Nigeria (Anonymous 2023). As such, my video essay focuses in particular on the presence of the supernatural (ghost or spirit hunting) in Nollywood horror films. In doing so, it seeks to include women in horror filmmaking from African countries like Nigeria, in the new wave of critical writing on women and horror film.