Horror flick, The Wiccan Girl set for production

A new movie that shows Nollywood’s expansion into new terrain is all set for production and coming to the screen soon. Titled, The Wiccan Girl, a horror film by Nigerian-Canadian filmmakers will hit the mainstream channels soon.

With Confidence Nwogu and Adeniyi Adewole as Executive Producers, The Wiccan Girl is produced and directed by Austin Odigie. While Ambrose Okundaye, Isoken Ibieorutomwen, Kc Muel Chinwuko, Massia Houri and Toka McBaror are production designers.

Speaking about the plot of the story, Producers said, “The Wiccan Girl is a story about redemption. It’s about a young college student who goes out in search of her friend who is mysteriously trapped in a diabolical cabin, but the consequences for rescuing her might be too heavy a price to pay.

Divulging the inspiration for the production of the horror drama, they noted, “one of us, Austin Odigie noticed there are very few horror films featuring blacks in Canada, and the almost non-existence in the Nollywood film industry. So he decided to fill that gap. He contacted fellow producers and with a writer on board, created The Wiccan Girl script.”

“Horror is a genre we are lacking in our film community. Though this film is a first in a series of films coming from our producer team, horror films make movie sense at this time. From the success of films like Jordan Peeler Us and the highly anticipated Nope, we know there is a large audience out there for good black horror films. So why not fill the void?”

The Producers also gave an insight on how the project was put together. “We are all Nigerians and Canadians filmmakers. Once the script was created, we got to work crafting the Nigerian-Canadian sensitivities into the project. We are creatives, so it was easy,” he articulated.

The movie is not without its challenges.
“Our primary challenge was funding because this film is an extremely low budget production. We shot 90 percent of the film in Canada, so we needed to hire great crewmembers and pay them what we could afford in the middle of a production boom in Ottawa. Hollywood producers were paying them double and sometimes triple what we could afford; as a result, there were very few crew members available. But like I said earlier, we are creative, so you get creative in crewing up,” the filmmakers stated.

The cast of The Wiccan Girl include Nollywood actors Linda Osifo, Nosa Obaseki and Nafisat Abdullahi.

According to them: “We wanted popular Nollywood actors to balance out our Canadian stars. So the choices of Linda Osifo and Nosa Obaseki as lead characters were a no-brainer and both are Canadians as well, so that helped a lot. This production is going to be a diaspora effort.”

On how The Wiccan Girl will be made accessible to the public, the producers clarified: “At this time we are focusing on streaming platforms for release, but theatrical is very much an option as well.”