During her interview with IndieWire, Nikyatu Jusu called “Nanny” a labor of love and highlighted the film’s specificity to her culture and the personal life of her mother. “I knew that I didn’t want to tell a straightforward genre story,” she said. “I wanted to remix this story of a domestic experience with genre.” Jusu mentioned that many of her favorite films remix styles and that she wanted “Nanny” to be a remix of genre films and “the American immigrant experience.” She also noted the connective tissue many viewers would have, “whether you were raised by a nanny or your mother was one. There were so many entry points for people.”
She found it fortunate that during the development of “Nanny,” the social and cultural conversations surrounding horror, and in particular, who gets to tell horror stories, were changing. “There were questions arising about where the Black women in horror were hiding,” she said. “So all of a sudden it seemed like there was an appetite for non-white male points of view in the horror realm.” Jusu called the timing “serendipitous,” and she’s absolutely right.
In the last few years, films like Nia DaCosta’s “Candyman,” Mariama Diallo’s “Master,” Mati Diop’s “Atlantics,” the segments of “Horror Noire” directed by Zandashé Brown, Kimani Ray Smith, and Robin Givens, and even Misha Green’s Emmy-winning HBO series “Lovecraft Country,” were all released to critical acclaim. “In my case, I wanted to introduce African folklore to the American horror paradigm,” said Jusu. “I happen to straddle this line as an American kid raised by African parents.”
As much as we love the horror genre, the time for non-white, male voices at the center is long overdue. If “Nanny” is any indicator, Nikyatu Jusu deserves to be at the forefront of the next era of horror.
