THE ORIGIN: MADAM KOI-KOI…NIGERIA’S HORROR MOVIE IN A DIFFERENT LIGHT (PART 1)

A great evil was unleashed on the town of Malomo in 1971 after a group of men sexually assaulted a young lady. 20 years later, it is back and killing people. This strange creature is dangerously close to St. Augustine’s Catholic School, a top college in the village. However, the mother superior will do anything to avoid losing leadership of the school to the School Education Board, even if it means hiding the gruesome death of a student and yet another sexual assault by her star students.

Does this sound like a movie you can watch?

This is a synopsis of The Origin: Madam Koi-Koi, a Nollywood movie by Jay Franklyn Jituboh and Dale Falola, which premiered on October 31, and I finally got a chance to watch it. To be honest, I didn’t know this was going to be a two-part film, so I have to say that the suspense at the end of the first part was well-played. The good news is that the second part dropped yesterday (November 7) and you can expect my review on that as well (as soon as I’m done with my Drone flying gigs for the week). So, let’s kick things off.

How great was the story?

We can all agree that our idea of horror movies in Nigeria is limited to ghost movies and dead people in white terrorizing those that killed them. This takes me back to the movie Diamond Ring, one of the first to truly terrify me as a child. So, to see us finally try to hack this niche is quite beautiful. I love how our entertainment scene is starting to get really matured and as a media professional myself, it’s fun to see us go beyond our supposed limits. I remember the story of Madam Koi-Koi, although I never went to a boarding school as a child.

Still, those stories filtered into our ears in our day school. According to the myth, Madam Koi-Koi was a wicked teacher known for her bright red heels that made the dreaded koi koi koi sound as she went into the halls and dormitories. She was a menace to the students, with painful beatings and punishments that had them in agony. One day, she slapped the child of an influential person and the students plotted to have her sacked. It worked, but she had a terrible accident on her way home and didn’t survive it. So, legend has it that she vowed to take revenge on all boarding students, who she has always hated, and makes her scary appearances at night after lights-out.

While this Netflix movie has her name, the storyline is quite different. The Netflix movie focuses on the burning issue of sexual violence, a menace in college campuses and communities at large. However, away from this major focus is another issue that mostly goes unaddressed: enablers. It points to the fact that evil thrives because people who should speak up choose to remain silent.

The red tinge may have been a little too sharp

As a videographer myself, I can’t help but pay attention to little details like the camera movement and color grading of the movie. The color tone of the movie was subtle and mature, giving the true vintage feel of a movie set in the 90s. The only slight issue I had was with the overly bright red colors to signify the horror scenes where Amanda was having nightmares about Madam Koi-Koi.

Of course, you can guess the character I hated the most.

This lovely award goes to Mother Superior. I’m a woman who felt a deep emotional reaction to the actions of the principal of St. Augustine’s Catholic School, who was determined to cover up the crimes of her star students because it would affect her role. Her greedy desires for power made her blame the sexual assault victim. I’m inclined to believe that if she had not been consistent with covering up the crimes of her student, others would have been saved from the terrors of the evil spirit.

And yes, my favorite character is…

The talkative, Edna. I’m big on loyalty and standing up for friends. Although, I have to admit that it would have taken a lot for me to be able to stand Edna as a friend, I have to applaud how she was willing to stand by Amanda when she saw that she was getting entangled with the boys that had a bad reputation.

The overall character choice was quite interesting, to be honest. It was refreshing not to see so many familiar faces packed into a movie just to garner attention. Every character has delivered on their roles impressively, including the major characters who I haven’t seen in any other movie before this. Although the teenage characters looked young enough for the role, I do wish we can build a booming industry of actual teenage actors in Nigeria. That will be refreshing to see.

Up next is to finally find out Amanda’s link to Madam Koi-Koi, giving her recurrent nightmares, and what the evil spirit actually wants.

My rating

Overall, this movie is a solid 7/10 because I love the progression of the storytelling and how it carries the audience along. I’m definitely looking forward to watching the second part of The Origin: Madam Koi-Koi.

And that’s that about that.