“Elevated horror” is a loaded term, but it surely applies to debut director Nikyatu Jusu’s first feature film, which wowed audiences at Sundance before being quickly snapped up by horror specialists Blumhouse, who know a good thing when they see it. As for the rest of us, we can see Nanny when it premieres exclusively on Amazon Prime on December 19.
Titans star Anna Diop takes a more dramatic role than Starfire as Aisha, an undocumented Senegalese refugee eking out a living in big, bad New York City who lands a job with wealthy couple Amy (Michelle Monaghan) and Adam (Morgan Spector) caring for their young daughter, Rose (Rose Decker). The family eats up all of Aisha’s time and emotional energy, but that’s okay—the money will enable her to bring her son Lamine (Jahleel Kamara) to the U.S.
However, Diop soon starts having strange visions and frightening hallucinations of spiders and drowning that start to disrupt her working day. Wise woman Kathleen (Leslie Uggams), part of New York’s West African diaspora, avers they’re messages—or perhaps warnings—from the trickster Anansi and the water spirit Mami Wata, figures from West African folklore. What could they portend? Nothing good, is our bet…
Nikyatu Jusu’s mother is an immigrant from Sierra Leone who worked as a domestic labourer in the director’s youth, so it’s safe to say that much of nanny is drawn from her lived experience. And while folk horror has been on the rise as a subgenre for some time now, it’s mainly been drawing on European sources; all other considerations aside, seeing West African folk traditions contrasted against the urban backdrop of New York City is certainly novel. Add in pressing themes of class, wealth, privilege, and the immigrant experience and we’ve got a recipe for a very singular horror experience. We’ll find out if the Sundance reaction was on the money soon enough.
