The Nollywood horror genre has declined over the years. This can be attributed to a combination of moral and religious panic, alongside the industry’s formulaic mode of operation. Over time, Nollywood has found other formulas that guarantee quick turnarounds and commercial safety. Most recently, however, there has been a noticeable pivot towards horror rooted in Nigerian folktales, as seen in Juju Stories (2021), The Origin: Madam Koi-Koi (2023), Idia (2025) and Ms. Kanyin (2025). Against this backdrop, Alive Till Dawn, directed by Sulaiman Ogegbe and co-produced by Uzor Arukwe (A Tribe Called Judah), is positioned as an essential intervention.
The zombie subgenre remains an alien venture to Nollywood filmmakers, with C.J Obasi‘s zero-budget Ojuju (2014) emerging as a rare example. Alive Till Dawn nonetheless identifies as “Nigeria’s first zombie apocalypse film” at the Nollywood box office. Its synopsis frames the film as a high-stakes zombie apocalypse centred on ensemble survival, with loyalty and fear put to test.
However, the narrative itself prioritises the daughter of a high-ranking police officer, played by a commendable Sunshine Rosman (To Kill a Monkey), who embodies her fear and determination even as the narrative thrusts her into increasingly distressing situations. Her struggles dominate the film, with her survival and personal arc forming the emotional resolution. The apocalyptic premise is thus reduced to a mere backdrop for a personal, character-driven story. This lack of clarity in Alive Till Dawn raises the question of whether the film’s emphasis leans toward claims of charting new genres over a coherent engagement with its apocalyptic premise.
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Alive Till Dawn opens with fully covered workers dumping what appears to be hazardous material into a water body. Shortly after, an intertitle explains the effects of water pollution, stating “UNICEF says 117,000 children die in Nigeria each year due to water-related illness —the highest number of any nation.” Having made this overt political statement in apparent solidarity with those subjected to systemic ruin, the film then proceeds to centre its narrative on the very systems implicated in that ruin, reducing the everyman as guests in their own struggles.
In a news report on TV in the police station, where almost the entire film is set, a woman pleads for government aid amid a protest, as their crops and rivers are contaminated. By contrast, Obasi’s Ojuju, which similarly traces its zombie outbreak to polluted water, sustains its social awareness by centering its narrative around the people and community directly affected. Set in the slums, Obasi’s film foregrounds infrastructural failure and the lived consequences of environmental neglect. The screenplay of Alive Till Dawn, however, comes across as socially indifferent and proposes a stance that borders on apologism to corrupt systems by rewarding them with centrality and agency. This performative saviours trope (police/government stepping in) neutralises the initial political commentary.
Rosman’s character, Alex, is burdened with a series of misfortunes, including the death of loved ones. She ultimately becomes the film’s primary vessel for apologising on behalf of corrupt systems. The world of the everyman is reduced to a visual backdrop, while the narrative follows those insulated by power and privilege.
Emerging as Alex’s ally is Isaac, a hyper-dramatic former prisoner (passionately embodied by Michael Dappa). He stands with her and for her when Badu and the other ex-convicts single her out for intimidation. Badu, a domineering ex-prisoner, proclaims himself the leader of the group’s survival mission, repeatedly undermining collective survival through ego-driven decisions. The character’s exaggerated and forceful nature shrinks his emotional impact as a villain, leaving Uzor Arukwe’s performance wooden.
In the early moments of the zombie outbreak, the imprisoned men plead with Alex to free them. The plea begins in pidgin, but Badu steps forward and switches to polished English, a gesture signifying intellectual authority and leadership. This distinction soon collapses. As the film progresses, all ex-convicts begin to speak in fluent, city-accented English. This inconsistency exposes that the film doesn’t know or commit to its own characters.
Other writing problems emerge through stiff, robotic dialogue. Characters communicate in abstract constructions, absent in daily Nigerian interactions, and void of emotional texture. Badu repeatedly insists that zombies are not real, echoing a common Nigerian skepticism toward Western horror conventions. In my sparsely populated cinema hall, this skepticism is manifested through laughter. A woman seated a few seats away kept repeating, “This is too oyinbo,” between laughs.
Western horror is not a reliable fear-inducer for the Nigerian audience; it is often perceived as imported evil detached from social reality. This raises another question. Alive Till Dawn borrows heavily from Western horror conventions without meaningfully translating or contextualising them. Meanwhile, Ojuju borrows and adapts the form to its setting, most notably through its extensive use of pidgin, which grounds the horror in a recognisable reality.
Newer Nigerian horror films have failed to build on the foundations laid by earlier works. Kenneth Nnebue’s Living in Bondage, a social and occult horror film that explores fear ingrained in traditional and spiritual realities like ritual killings and the occult, is widely regarded as a pioneering film. Other notable horror flicks from the video-boom era include Nneka the Pretty Serpent (1994), Karishika (1996), Sakobi: The Snake Girl (1998), End of the Wicked (1999), andWillie Willie (2002).
Public commentary frequently highlights how these films instilled intense fear in viewers as children. Many audiences, myself included, recall childhood encounters with these films as deeply traumatising. Yet, these films are not widely referred to as “horror” in public discourse, as Nollywood audiences typically reserve the horror label for Western horror. For the Nollywood audience, Nollywood’s social and occult horror films feel personal and immediate, reflecting lived social anxieties and spiritual fears. Labelling them as “horror” risks oversimplifying the indelible traces of terror associated with these films—traces that Alive Till Dawn does not engage with, operating instead through Western horror conventions where monsters signify intangible evil.
All of the film’s shortcomings are nonetheless framed with a level of visual competence that aligns with the conventions of the horror genre. Expressive, shadowy lighting renders the pervasive gloom that shapes the film’s unfolding events. The camera itself doubles as a zombie—shaky and intrusive—creeping across spaces, following the characters with predatory insistence.
Ultimately, the film gestures towards an idea in which figures foregrounded as embodiments of societal and systemic rot are consumed by the very consequences of those broken systems, here literalised as zombies. Police officers and ex-convicts alike are absorbed into this moral economy. Alive Till Dawn, therefore, exists largely as an illusion of choice and innovation in Nigerian horror cinema, carrying the label of a “Nigerian zombie film” while remaining formally and narratively derivative of Western horror traditions and painfully inferior to its references.
Alive Till Dawn was produced by Leyo Studios and Dark Horse Studios, with distribution by Nile Entertainment. It was released in cinemas on January 30, 2026.
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Side Musings
- Zombies emerge from a muddy water body but never infect the locals. They go straight to the police station.
- Every ex-convict switches from pidgin to perfect English with a city accent mid-film. I think the part where the apocalypse was stopped for them to attend English classes is in the director’s cut. It has to be somewhere
- Alex and Isaac are certainly not local coded characters. Black brethrens would never be caught in a hug, outside a zombie-infested building, after spending hours trying to get out. They would run, their feet not touching the ground. I am in solidarity with the lady in the screening room who constantly echoed, “This is too oyinbo…”
