While interrogating our past is crucial for building a better future, the original piece’s reflection on Nollywood is built on a romanticized history. It almost poetically mourns the decline of Nollywood horror, claiming “we” became afraid of what it showed us. I don’t share this fervour.

I believe its decline as a genre had little to do with a collective “fear of what it revealed.” As is typical with any exploitative film cycle, the formula loses its power as audiences become fatigued. It is far more likely that the marketers who commissioned these films simply moved on to the next fad, rather than the industry succumbing to some nebulous fear of the themes it explored.

The central flaw in the article’s premise is its timeline and attribution. The rejection of graphic “money ritual” films was not a movement led by Pentecostal churches reacting to Nollywood in the 2000s. Christian filmmaking bodies, most notably Mount Zion Faith Ministries, predated the commercial home video boom, releasing their first film in 1990 and growing their influence concurrently with, not in reaction to, early Nollywood.

The primary force behind the subgenre’s decline was regulatory, not religious. From its inception in 1993, the National Film and Video Censors Board (NFVCB) had a broad mandate, targeting not only ritual films and “juju” stories, but also scenes of sex, nudity, and political critiques of the government. The turning point, however, was the real-world consequence of these narratives. A well-documented example is the mob-killing of Nigerians in Accra, Ghana, who were suspected of ritualism, a perception directly fueled by the popular Nigerian films of the time.

As journalist Justin Akpovi-Esade reported on October 16, 2003, this incident and others like it forced the NFVCB to act. The board began a severe crackdown, with films like the popular Issakaba series facing heavy criticism and restrictions. Prominent directors of the era, such as Lancelot Imasuen and Chico Ejiro, frequently had their films flagged for “occult themes.” This pressure culminated in 2004 when the NFVCB publicly announced its attempt to ban all films promoting witchcraft and ritual killing.

Nollywood’s response was not one of creative introspection but of pragmatic survival. Driven by the powerful marketer-distributor machinery, filmmakers simply pivoted to the next profitable trend. As the NFVCB clamped down on ritual and juju films, the industry churned out movies focused on armed robbery. When the censors targeted that genre, the industry shifted again to historical epics, which conveniently allowed for ritualistic themes by framing them as community-sanctioned tradition.

The subsequent evolution of Nollywood genres was dictated almost entirely by this profit-driven model. The distributors and marketers who served as de-facto creative executives followed the money, leading to cycles of comedies, romantic dramas, and even a brief foray into soft-core erotica, which was also swiftly curtailed by regulatory pressure. This era was disrupted not by a change in creative taste, but by a shift in the business model itself: the resurgence of cinemas, the rise of YouTube, and the launch of platforms like Africa Magic/DStv. This disruption empowered a new generation of filmmakers, freed from the commercial shackles of the Idumota and Alaba marketers, to tell stories that reflected their own sensibilities.

Ultimately, the persistent challenge in the industry isn’t that Nollywood “killed” a genre, but that it has long faced a foundational deficit in craft. The horror films of the ’90s did entrance audiences and gave us iconic moments, but they should be viewed as a stepping stone, not a pinnacle. While they expressed our collective suspicions about wealth and ambition, they offered no real reflection. Instead, they used rituals, sex, and demonic possession for pure shock value, reinforcing superstitious fatalism and milking paranoia for commercial gain. This enriched the marketers but left actors and creators hustling for scraps. To trade this reality for nostalgia is to stunt our growth.

With a scarcity of formal film schools and a weak connection to the institutional memory of Nigeria’s cinematic golden age of the ’70s and ’80s, the industry has often relied on raw energy over refined storytelling. That said, the resurgence of the horror genre, led by filmmakers like my brothers Daniel Oriahi and CJ ‘Fiery’ Obasi, signals a promising new direction. Theirs is an ambitious cinema that is socially resonant and crafted with care. In an environment saturated with soft-light dramas, their work is the opposite of exploitation; it is art. While there is much to learn from that earlier era, their work proves it is time to look forward.