KC Ejelonu’s short film The Weight ends with a Bible verse before the closing credits starts to roll in. It reminds me of old-era, pro-Scripture Nollywood and the Mike Bamiloye-helmed Mount Zion films of the ‘90s. The verse in question is from Hebrews 13:5, which is about cultivating contentment. In other words, be satisfied with what you have. Based on a true story, The Weight was released after Valentine’s Day on Ejelonu’s YouTube channel, but it had long since been produced in 2015 and kept from public view.

“So remember that short film I produced two years ago?” the actress said via her Instagram account. “Well things happened and I was not motivated to release it & then I changed my mind. The Weight is based on a true-life story. I met a young lady a few years ago and shared her story with me and requested her name be withheld. She passed away February 2017… May her Soul Rest in Peace.”

This is touching. And the timing of the film’s release feels respectful and immortalising. There’s a certain way I view a film when I’m told early on that it’s based on someone’s life or some momentous event; I tend to be more critical of this kind of cinema. The Weight threads into spooky horror terrain and choked by its own atmosphere despite its 5-minute runtime. The opening shots are sex scenes in which we are introduced to Nkechi and a faceless man. She’s sprawled in money and the picture is deliberately seedy as if the act in the scene isn’t deserving of better enhancement.

Nkechi’s choice to engage in sex work, and the ensuing ‘consequences’, is what The Weight explores. Already the film bristles with its own prejudice about conditional sex work and slut-shaming and forces you to see its moral compass. Afterwards, Nkechi is plagued by uncontrollable orgasms. In a scene showing her seated at her office, her body shakes with her eyes closed until the orgasm passes on like a tremor. She hears strange noises, and the feeling that someone is stalking her. If you have seen the trailer for Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming, iPhone-shot thriller Unsane, then you can picture Nkechi’s paranoia.

While watching The Weight, I couldn’t tell what was responsible for Nkechi’s anxieties, but I knew nebulous forces were at play. That Nkechi could have contracted a haunting, malevolent spirit from sex isn’t exactly impossible. David Robert Mitchell’s 2014 supernatural horror film It Follows is an ebullient study into teenage folly and dark entities. The Weight’s director Ejiro Onobrakpor gleefully focuses on Nkechi’s fears, but we don’t see how she interrogates them. This undercuts what could have been wholesome storytelling. The film’s ending is abrupt and poorly executed.

With its puritanical, Christian message foisted upon viewers, I’m not particularly looking forward to Ejelonu’s subsequent films. The Weight is her debut work, and she had all the time in the world to make an impression.

Watch The Weight below:

Bernard Dayo

When Bernard Dayo isn’t writing about pop culture, he’s watching horror movies and reading comics and trying to pretend his addiction to Netflix isn’t a serious condition.