Movies were a big part of our lives growing up.
Some of them left us feeling like hard guys. But a movie or two shook the very foundations of our existence. In three hours or less, they showed us the wages of sin and bad behaviour in somewhat blurry detail.
Lowkey, we need to thank these movies for making us into well-behaved people.
Diamond Ring
This movie’s influence on me is so strong that when I got into university as a prodigy of sorts, I didn’t make any friends. I was convinced that someone would make me their bestie over beer that my father never let me drink. Next thing, I’d be stealing something that belonged to an angry dead woman.
Moral lesson: Don’t join bad gang.
Karishika
Fine girls will kill you. Why? Because Karishika teaches us that there are fine girls who are also witches that can snatch your soul and contribute it to their coven. And that ominous theme song “Karishika, Karishika! Queen of Darkness, Lucifer Lucifer King of Demons,” is still the most troubling thing I’ve ever heard.
Moral lesson: All that glitters is not gold.
Just A Little Sin
A.k.a. “Just A Lirru Knacks”. So a young promising choir member, played by the wonderful Gloria Bamiloye, has sex for what may be the first time in her life. Over the next hour or so, her entire world comes crashing down. People start falling sick and dying. The church falls into disarray. Then, our sister-in-the Lord dies (as payment for the knacks, of course) and is taken to heaven by a sketchy character in white tablecloth.
Moral lesson: Knacks will kill you.
End of the Wicked
A movie full of darkness and evil children, including one named “Mistake”. This movie single-handedly made us scared of puff-puff and all our childhood friends. Also, Alex Osifo as Beelzebub is the scariest thing I remember from my childhood.
Moral lesson: Your friends can use fried goods to take you to hell.
Ultimate Power
aka Agbara Nla. This is the second movie on this list by Mount Zion, the film production company run by the Bamiloyes that scarred our childhoods. The evil that is this movie still rests in most people’s memories, screaming “Ayamatanga”.
Moral lesson: Las las, all of us will die.
Nneka The Pretty Serpent
This 1992 special was dedicated to the men of God who have an eye for pretty members of their flock. But when did that ever stop us from learning a lesson or two? Nneka, the lead character, switched from “mermaid to hot cake inna the church” and nothing remained the same.
Moral lesson: Fine girls are bad for you.
The Last Burial
If you believe Nollywood, every wealthy man has a few skeletons in his wardrobe. And if he’s like Ogbuefi Ozor Nnamani, the lead character, you’ll find out when his corpse refuses to be buried. Literally. Because at some point when he was alive, he thought seeking dollars from the Great Shankiki. The entire movie has him sitting up in his coffin dead, because no one thought to cremate him.
Moral lesson: Things would have been different if I grew up in ’60s.
Witches
This was like the Avengers of the underworld. Apart from having a stellar cast, it also had the strongest line-up of witches before Koto Aiye. And that god-forsaken song.
Moral lesson: Where two or three are gathered, there are witches.
