‘Welcome II the Terrordome’ Director Discusses Her Hip-Hop, Nigerian Folklore-Influenced Horror Flick [Exclusive]

Horror movie fans pride themselves on knowing ball. But fans of gritty survivalist horror movies like 28 Days Later, are you aware of Welcome II to the Terrordome? This 1995 film, directed by Ngozi Onwurah and predating Danny Boyle’s film, is another post-apocalyptic British film that explores the darkest parts of humanity. But despite Terrordome’s tone and composition feeling equally grungy, gritty, and distinctly British, the film did not experience the same widespread cult status that Boyle’s 2002 film did.

Despite being so culturally significant, particularly as the first theatrically distributed British feature directed by a Black woman, the film was, in many ways, lost to history. After its initial run in 1995, the actual, literal film of Terrordome deteriorated. During the summer of 2020, as the Black Lives Matter movement rekindled, Black cinephiles developed a renewed interest in Terrordome. 

Soon, Janus Films restored Onwurah’s movie. Now, Terrordome is part of the Criterion Collection, joining fellow horror collection newcomers The Shout, The Silence of the Lambs, and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein. This is for good reason: The lyrical storytelling and the deftly crafted, creeping sense of unease make it one of those rare movies that’s low on gore and high on the kind of dread that sticks with you forever. 

As soon as you step into Onwurah’s world, you feel on edge. Viewers watch Spike (Valentine Nonyela) and his sister Anjela (Suzette Llewellyn) navigate the segregated horror show of the Terrordome, where disturbing sights wait around every darkened corner. A key character in is Jodie (), a white girl who is pregnant with Spike’s baby. As retaliation, her white ex-boyfriend ends up killing Spike’s little nephew — Anjela’s son. Bereaved, Anjela goes on a murder spree, which amps up the racial violence brewing in the Terrordome. These scenes of taut, racially motivated violence were nothing new in the ’90s.