The Aesthetics and Politics of Nollywood’s Gothic and Horror Genre: Performance, Superstition, and Social Critique

This study analyses the aesthetics and politics of the gothic and horror genre in Nollywood, examining how these films deploy performance conventions of supernatural encounter, ritual, and moral transgression as vehicles for social critique. Nollywood's engagement with supernatural themes has been extensively documented, yet the genre's aesthetic logic, its performance conventions, and its relationship to broader socio-political discourses remain underanalysed. The research examines twenty horror and supernatural thriller productions released between 2020 and 2024, applying a combination of genre theory, performance analysis, and critical cultural studies frameworks. Data were gathered through close film analysis, director and actor interviews, and audience reception focus groups conducted in Lagos and Enugu. The study finds that Nollywood horror operates as a complex cultural space where popular anxieties about modernity, economic inequality, witchcraft, and political corruption are simultaneously performed, entertained, and narratively contained. The film genre's performance conventions of possession, ritual combat, and supernatural revelation draw on Yoruba, Igbo, and Edo cosmological vocabularies, producing a distinctly Nigerian horror aesthetic. The research concludes that Nollywood horror is a critically significant but undertheorised genre that illuminates important dimensions of contemporary Nigerian cultural anxiety. Keywords: Nollywood, horror genre, supernatural performance, cultural critique, social anxiety.