“End of the F**king World” is the newest Netflix show you should absolutely watch

Nigerian boarding houses are replete with folklore of scary figures with vendettas against schools or students. Sometimes, they are just stories senior students tell to scare new boys as part of the initiation ritual into boarding life.

One that was common in my time at a boarding house was that of the bush baby. It made my mates and I scared of the little bush outside our dorm that we thought was a forest. It didn’t help that we once had a wild dog problem, which hunted our housemaster’s cattle and evoked fear throughout the school. The injuries and death of livestock solidified the myth of the bush baby, leaving everyone worried and scared. If my memory serves me correctly, a few children were withdrawn from school while the school attempted to resolve the issue.

Eventually, it was just a local dog with a peculiar energy and taste.

That nightmare is nothing compared to the ones supposedly unleashed in Ikechuckwu Jerry Ossai’s Ms. Kanyin, Nemsia’s latest release from their Prime Video deal, which explores the urban legend of Ms. Koi Koi—a maleficent female spirit whose steps in clacking shoes are enshrined in the ears of every boarder.

Ms. Kanyin, like Netflix’s Lady Koi Koi, tries to tell this myth via a revenge horror thriller story, which makes sense given that teenagers, especially boarders who grow up in formative years without parental guidance, can be mischievously wicked and are the film’s villains. The story centers on Ms. Kanyin, the school’s French teacher, who is a 90s chic: stockings in her heels, floral gowns with hair well packed retro-style in a nice front bun.

The film makes sure we notice her stilettos; after all, the Ms. Koi Koi legend is about the distinct sound pointed heels make as women beautifully stride in them, except at night, of course, when such sounds suddenly evoke fear. It also presents her worries and fears, especially her extreme case of cynophobia, which is outlandish but necessary for a crucial part of the third act. We are also informed that she’s kind and cares about her work, right and wrong, and students, almost too much to the point that the principal thinks she’s too good for the school, and some of her colleagues hate her uprightness. 

Not Mustapha, though, the dashing, slim Agricultural Science teacher who likes everything about her and courts her publicly.

Amongst the students, we have the prominent six: Chisom, the principal’s dutiful daughter; Lami, who dreams of life as a model in New York; Amara, the good-girl-turned-bad who hopes to go to Harvard. Then the siblings Finditae and Fiona, and her dummy boyfriend, Uti, who’s chasing a swimming record.

We meet them after their WAEC mock result is released, and everyone is worried about Amara getting a C in French. She needs an A in her final exams to get into Harvard. As they comfort her, we learn Finditae fancies her and is also the school’s resident bad boy.

Amara and Chisom decided to take French classes to save Ms. Kanyin from being sacked, as her role would be redundant without enough French students. But that good deed has become a bottleneck as she must pass French to achieve her dreams of going to Harvard. However, she fails the subject during the mock exams. Even in her private practice, she does not hit the mark. Then one day, she notices that the actual exam papers were handed to Ms. Kanyin, who never wanted them, by the way. 

She approached her teacher quite audaciously to ask for an expo. The honorable Ms. Kanyin refuses, but not with the authority of a teacher setting her student aright. Instead, she does so feebly, to bolster her victim arc and cast these teenage students as aggressors. It’s the first warning: this film already knows its end and is going to get there however it can.

Amara informs her friends about the papers and tells them she wants to get them. They all have reasons to pass their WAEC, but Finditae in particular is hesitant. A public spat between him and Ms. Kanyin changes his mind. So they plan a heist to get into Ms. Kanyin’s room. There’s a lovely segment heavy in classic heist tropes as they lay out their plans, with guns and violent strategy replaced by teenage mischief.

Ms. Kanyin goes on a date with Mustapha on the planned night but returns early.

However, Amara, in her determination to get the papers, stays back while her friends flee the scene. A scared Ms. Kanyin sees her house ransacked and feels the presence of someone in her house. She grabs a knife and approaches Amara, and just as she is about to reach Amara, Chisom throws a rock onto her window to distract her and help Amara escape. 

Ms. Kanyin steps outside to check what’s going on and meets her worst nightmare: a dog. Fueled by fear, she runs and runs as far as she can into the forest that hugs the school, with the dog chasing relentlessly after her until she trips, hits her head on a tree and dies. Her blood splashes all over a tree that we first see in the film’s beginning, which brings forth evil when it tastes blood. In that forest, Ms. Kanyin transforms into the malevolent Ms. Koi Koi. It is a convenient way to create a monster, but that’s what we are working with.  

There’s something to say about how Ms. Kanyin captures the nostalgic feeling of secondary school and boarding house, escaping the trappings of most Nollywood films that want to replicate American high school in our films. It’s also beautifully shot and set thanks to the lush scenery of the Adesoye College in Offa, where the film was shot. But it doesn’t fail to follow Nollywood’s casting of clearly older people in teenagers’ roles. It’s not just that they are older, the true problem is they do look older, and you never truly believe they are secondary school students.

When you forgive that because a film this beautiful and a story this crucial must be watched and enjoyed, you’re burdened with the lack of creative ideas to tell an origin story without a cheap escape route. The legend of Ms. Koi Koi here is attributed to a special tree deep in the forest that’s awakened by blood, and a poor teacher who’s forced out of character by her students.

It’s too convenient, too easy, that you don’t believe the characters and their motivation. There are interesting ways to establish the legend of Ms. Koi Koi that could even define how we see the legend or what we believe. But this film has no interest in establishing such a lasting legacy. It’s a film in a rush to get to its third act, where blood splashes and the Ms. Koi Koi spirit emerges to exact revenge that’s not earned. She goes after the aforementioned six who ransacked her home and caused her death and serves revenge in not-particularly creative (or local) ways, but as established, this is a film in a rush. 

For many viewers, Amazon Prime’s After 30 will register as the latest sexy Lagos-based romance to hit streaming services, and one that gives a fresh voice (and look) to that beloved four-girls-just-trying-to-survive-in-a-big-city motif. But for the film’s director, Momo Spaine, and the legions of fans who have been clamoring for a follow-up to the original series that the film is based on, this project has been a long time coming. 

Spaine first cut her teeth in filmmaking on After 30’s predecessor, Before 30. Released in 2016, Before 30 was a series that followed the love lives of four young women navigating the well-known, uniquely Nigerian pressures to settle down and get married before they hit 30. Now, armed with nearly a decade’s worth of experience and a sweet Amazon production budget, Spaine has brought the four women’s stories to the big screen, picking up eight years after viewers last saw them.  And while there’s no shortage of stories about women navigating love and career life in Nigeria — think hit series like Unmarried, Smart Money Woman and Skinny girl in transit — Spaine brings an attention to detail that radiates as you watch its four lead actresses, Dami Adegbite, Beverly Naya, Ane Ocha and Meg Otanwa, reprise their starring roles. 

From carefully curated color palettes to meticulous costume design to hair and makeup, the pages of sketches and decks that Spaine shows me on our late-May Zoom call are nothing short of a creative shrine to a very personal story. “I had hours of conversations with my [director of photography] and with our makeup artist, Lillian,” she says. “Talking about [things like] light reflecting makeup, what kind of underpainting we’re doing under the foundation so that when the light hits their skin it just glows and pops.”

Spaine’s filmmaking journey began when she was attending university in South Africa in the early 2010s. Back then, she’d assist her close family friend and veteran rapper, Sasha P, whenever she came to South Africa to shoot music videos. “That was like my first proper exposure to filmmaking, and I just fell in love,” Spaine recalls. 

It was toward the end of her time in South Africa that Spaine received a script for the pilot episode of what would become Before 30. Soon after, she started an internship with the show’s producers, Nemsia Productions, who produced After 30, as well as other projects like Soft Love and the AMVCA-award-winning Breath of Life. Spaine worked with Nemsia over the roughly four years it took to make Before 30, and helped build the story and the audience that helped make its follow-up, After 30, possible.  

”People loved the characters, they loved that the story was relatable,” she said of the positive response to the show. “It felt different. It felt like something that was slightly more elevated in terms of the storytelling, [and] the character development.”

Spaine also attributes the show’s success to the fact that it took risks with the kinds of stories it told. “Back then, you were talking about a Muslim couple bringing women into their marriage for sex, about a sexually free character in Nkem. We’re also talking about a born-again virgin who wanted to use spirituality to reverse her past sexual relations. So it was a lot of edge for that time as well, that I think we got feedback on being very successful.”

Before 30 was re-released on Netflix in 2019, and then saw a resurgence during the COVID-19-necessitated lockdowns in 2020 that brought a broader audience. After two years on Netflix, Amazon commissioned After 30 to continue the women’s story with a look at where they are now. Spaine spoke to us about how her personal experiences helped shape the film, how she’s continuing to push the envelope in terms of what kinds of Nigerian stories are being told, and what she hopes 

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

I’m assuming there are parts of you that are in this movie. Can you tell me about that?

I struggle to think of a part of the film that does not have a piece of me in it. But starting with the characters, I’ve always had my favorites. I fancy myself a [Temi] in some ways, which is the lead character. I love fashion, I have that legal background, and I have almost the same relationship with my mom. But Nkem (played by Beverly Naya) is who I would like to be: that level of confidence, sexiness, just being this powerful woman that does what she wants and is unapologetic about it, but is still soft and honest at heart. Ama, for me, is an expression of who I think we should all aspire to be. The kind of good, pure-hearted, well-intentioned person, — that youthful, naive energy. And then for Aisha, it’s just that strength; she already has the security, but you also kind of have to show that being married does not mean all your problems are solved. 

All these years after making the original show, how do you think the ways that you have grown as a person show up in the way that these characters have changed?

For [Temi], I don’t know, [Temi] pisses me off. She’s very confused. I don’t agree with how she runs her dating life. Like, I could not stand Carrie Bradshaw, and I love Sex and the City, but all she does is make bad decisions. And that’s kind of what makes a complex and dynamic character. With [Ama], I wanted to do a storyline where a character had to contend with their sexual identity, but from a very respectful place, from a true place that was not going to make fun of or minimize that experience. And for Aisha, the biggest thing with her is the conflicts that she has with Nkem. In the last eight to 10 years of my life, I’ve fallen out with friends that I thought we would die together. That kind of devastating friendship fight where you don’t think you can come back from. 

Talk to me about the music for the show, Before 30. How did you put that together, and what decisions went into that process?

The music on this show makes me so proud. I was not as involved in the music of season one. We had no budget for music, so all we could do was approach people. After begging and pleading, maybe two people collected money; the other people just gave us permission. Bez, I think, just gave us permission because he was close with someone on the team at the time.I begged TeeZee for “Toyin” – we were just going around asking family members who had made music. But then there are ones that were chosen because they were so perfect, like Temi Dollface and Blackmagic. So half of it was just using our community,  music from our existing community.  And the other half of it was just begging, and everybody was upcoming at that time. Everyone was so willing back then to do things as a favor or to do things because they liked the idea.

What was it like securing music this time around for the film?

I’m really happy that the industry has boomed now, but even with what we thought was a comfortable budget, we could not get all the artists [we wanted] for the film. 

Kaline [our music supervisor and the composer on the film], did a good job of going back to the drawing board like we did in season one, and just using our community. So, Kaline was able to pull together a bunch of songs from artists [who were willing to work with our budgets]. Everybody got paid, but it wasn’t a massive life-changing amount. They just did it because they believed in the story, and they wanted their music to be attached to the film.

What was your favourite part of making Before 30? 

My favorite part was just getting to direct. Honestly, I spent seven years of my life producing thinking, “Okay, this is what I’m good at,” and I feel like I have a natural flair for producing, but I wouldn’t say I ever enjoyed it. It’s just something I knew I could do. Directing makes me so happy. I’m just like, “Why have I been wasting my life producing?” Every time I’m directing, I’m at my best professionally. I get to be creative, I get to tell people what to do because that is my favorite thing in life. So, just getting to direct in itself was a blessing and a journey of self-discovery. I realized: this is what I’m supposed to be doing with my life, this is what makes me happy. 

This film was produced by Nemsia, but you have your own production company called Blush and Slate. Can you tell us about that?  

Now that Before 30 is out in the ether, I am just excited to continue building a company that centers stories about women, because I really think those are the stories that I am best placed to tell. I know how to speak to women, and I know what they care about. I care that they come off looking the way that they want to look. Whether it’s commercial, reality, documentary, or scripted [stuff], I gravitate towards content that either centers women or is targeting female audiences. So, just continuing to be able to build my own style, my own company, and my repertoire of films with Blush and State is what I am most excited about. Blush and Slate is a vehicle that allows me to express myself fully creatively, 

For people who have a story and don’t know where to start,  what is your advice?

First of all, call Blush and Slate. If you don’t know where to start, hire a production company or a producer who sees your vision and believes in it and is willing to help you move it to the end. If you are that person and you have the time and resources, and energy to produce it yourself, then just get started. If it’s a documentary, book your first interview.

You don’t have to film the interview. Just figure out who the first person you want to talk to in your documentary is. Call them and have a conversation with them. Ask them if they would even be interested in featuring in a documentary. You just have to start. If it’s a scripted thing, write the first page of the script. You don’t have to write the whole script. Just write the first thing. For people who want to produce things, it’s very overwhelming because there are 2000 things that you need to do at the same time to really kick off a production. But there’s only one way to eat an elephant, and that’s bite by bite. So you still have to do the first thing that you can do and then build the momentum from there. Ideas in your head don’t do anyone any good.

The advent of global movie streaming services has resulted in a major boom for the Nigerian film industry. These platforms—Netflix, Showmax, Amazon Prime, and more—have contributed to presenting Nigerian films and their stars (behind the scenes or in front of the camera) to worldwide audiences, as well as revealing cultural and societal idiosyncrasies. While good abounds in the current situation, only a few Nigerian productions have managed to entertain viewers and critics alike, and side-step the notion that Nigerian filmmakers are yet to master pairing a great story with a great production value.

In a recent interview, Nigerian critic Alithnayn Abdulkareem shares “…Nollywood is not at the stage where the films being produced have the range to feature in or compete in global conversations about the quality, purpose and vision of film. In business terms, perhaps, but no way in terms of plot, dialogue or the aforementioned production values.” In most cases, the Nigerian films that delve into more complex subject matters fail to make a splash on the home front, and are shoved to the background in favour of glossy big-budget blockbusters. 

For the longest period, piracy and copyright infringement were two issues that have handicapped the Nigerian film industry; while cinema and film streaming platforms have helped curb the cancerous growth of piracy, the latter is still a problem that continually rears its ugly head. The latest case is the Linda Ikeji-executive-produced Netflix-housed film ‘Dark October.’ Released on the streaming platform over the past week, the Toka McBaror-directed film is centred on the tragic death of four University of Port Harcourt (UNIPORT) students who were wrongly accused of theft and lynched in the Aluu community of Rivers State in October 2012.

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Linda Ifeoma Ikeji (@officiallindaikeji)

‘Dark October’ aims for a realistic and jolting portrayal of the death and events surrounding the death of those four students—Ugonna Obuzor, Lloyd Toku, Tekena Elkanah and Chiadika Biringa. In 2012, when clips of the lynching surfaced on the internet and went viral, the unfortunate incident shook the country as calls were made to ensure stringent measures for jungle justice. An anti-lynching bill was proposed but that hasn’t seen the light of day. Five years after the incident, a trial was held in Rivers State and three persons were sentenced to death for the murder of the four undergraduate students.

Days before ‘Dark October’s’ February 3 premiere on Netflix, the families of the four UNIPORT students, through a statement from the Integrity Friends for Truth and Peace Initiative (TIFPI), demanded the suspension of the film, citing that they were not contacted for the project. “The production of the advertised movie has deeply reactivated the trauma and psychological pain that these families have been irrecoverably battling with for the past ten years, and this is unfair,” the statement read. “It is on record that Linda Ikeji has never reached out to the affected families since 2012 and this raises questions on her motivation.”

The families also threatened legal action against Linda Ikeji and her partners, which in this case are Netflix and the film’s distributor FilmOne Productions. In an interview with BBC Pidgin, Linda Ikeji stated that her decision to make the film came from a good place, which is to honour the memories of the Aluu Four victims and cast light on the evils of jungle justice. While those are noble intentions, they do not reduce the severity of her and her crew’s actions. ‘Dark October’, which should have been a saving grace of some sort, also doesn’t match Ikeji’s upright aspirations.

‘Dark October’ might be the latest case of copyright-associated problems but it’s not the first, high-profile case of this nature. In 2020, shortly after the release of the Kenneth Gyang-directed Òlòtūré on Netflix, Nigerian journalist Tobore Ovuorie called out EbonyLife Films owner Moe Abudu and the film’s crew for failure to sufficiently credit her as the primary source for Òlòtūré. In 2014, ZAM Chronicle and Premium Times published Ovuorie’s undercover report of sex trafficking in Nigeria. “[Òlòtūré] does not closely resemble my work,” Ovuorie said. “It is a copy and paste of my work. [Òlòtūré] is my life story.”

Although the film’s crew admits that Òlòtūré was inspired by Ovuorie’s report, Mo Abudu refuted Ovorie’s claims, stating she had acknowledged Ovuorie’s journalistic achievements, granted her a private screening of the movie, given her a special mention and offered 5% of the profits of the film’s cinema run to Tobore’s NGO. She further stated that her company had obtained the rights to Ovuorie’s story through Premium Times, her employer at the time.

Mo Abudu responds to Tobore Ovuorie’s allegations against EbonyLife on Oloture in new video. pic.twitter.com/KBuko0tj2c

— Ibrahim Salawu (@UnilagOlodo) January 12, 2021

Ovuorie responded to Abudu’s remarks, saying that she had, through her lawyers, informed Abudu that the investigation for her piece had started before her employment with Premium Times. “[Òlòtūré] is an ADAPTATION of my work and life-story. I experienced the investigation, the process, and the risks, upon which the movie is based,” she wrote. “I also single-handedly authored the publication the movie relied on. The publication of my experience is what gave birth to [Òlòtūré].” Ovuorie also demanded compensation of $5,000,000.00 for copyright infringement.

According to the Nigerian Copyright Act LFN 2004, the author of a work owns the copyright; however, Section 10 (3) of the Act stipulates that “where a literary, artistic or musical work is made by the author in the course of his employment by the proprietor of a newspaper, magazine or similar periodical under a contract of service or apprenticeship…the said proprietor shall, in the absence of any agreement to the contrary, be the first owner of copyright in the work in so far as the copyright relates to the publication of the work in any newspaper, magazine or similar periodical.” This section shows that while Ovuorie is the author of the work and has exclusive rights, Premium Times also has copyright claims as the publisher. Legally, Mo Abudu was right to say she got consent from Premium Times but it still doesn’t erase Ovuorie’s demands that she be identified as the sole owner of the story because, without her work, there wouldn’t have been any reason for Abudu to approach Premium Times in the first place.

The issue of copyright infringement isn’t only a problem in film; it’s also prevalent in the music industry, with the most recent cases being Carter Efe vs. Berri Tiga and SGaWD vs. Dvpper Music. In the situation of Linda Ikeji and ‘Dark October,’ it seems to be a moral issue rather than a legal one. Globally, there is no requirement for a filmmaker to seek consent before making a film about a person– whether living or dead. The only exception to the rule, though, is if a person has copyrighted their name, image and likeness—thereby making it a standout brand. That is not the case with the Aluu Four victims, meaning that anyone can make a film about them.

For a story as deeply troubling with heavy themes as ‘Dark October,’ Linda Ikeji could have done the just and moral thing and engaged the families of the victims by trying to seeking out their consent and support. While that won’t mean total agreement from the families, it would be courteous and have better portrayed her intentions to show respect for the memories of those students whose lives were cut short by senseless rage. Towards the end of the film, ‘Dark October’ makes a mess of paying its respects to the Aluu Four—played by newcomers Chuks Joseph, Okpara Munachi, Kem-Ajieh Ikechukwu and Kelechukwu Oriaku—when a character in the film (who was close to the four main characters) directly addresses the audience about their death. It might have been a tearjerker move but instead, it served very little to honour to lives of the departed boys.

Films about real-life occurrences are nothing new. All around the world, filmmakers and directors are borrowing inspiration from the world around us and retooling this as digestible content for global audiences. This won’t particularly be the first time that Netflix co-signs a real-life story without first seeking the permission of the affected victims or family. Last year, the streaming giant came under fire for the release of Ryan Murphy-directed ‘Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffery Dahmer Story’ which failed to seek the permission of the families affected by Dahmer’s heinous crimes.  One of the victim’s mothers Shirley Hughes told the Guardian: “I don’t see how they can do that. I don’t see how they can use our names and put stuff out like that out there.”

As Nollywood continues to expand its scope in terms of storytelling and production values, its key players must strive to ensure that they cover all bases, whether it be legal or moral obligations. Nigerian film producer Charles Okpaleke’s Play Network Studios have announced plans for upcoming films based on the 1803 Igbo landing and the 1993 Nigerian Airways hijack; it is hoped that Okpaleke (and his team) as well as any other Nigerian filmmaker interested in retelling true-life situations make the right choices and avoid the reoccurrence of the issues similar to Òlòtūré and Dark October. While it is great that the Nigerian film industry has positioned itself for a global audience, it is important to ensure that there are no skewed stories on offer.

Featured image credits/NATIVE