I Watched The Nollywood Movie, ‘Witches,’ So You Don’t Have To

Once upon a time, I recapped an insane Christian book that claimed the devil created football as a tool to destroy humanity. The article’s popularity made me turn my recaps into a weekly series named “So You Don’t Have To“, where I find batshit crazy pieces of media (books, movies, etc) and recap them for your pleasure.

Today, I’ll be recapping the Nollywood movie, Witches.

Zack Orji and Liz Benson: The dream sugar daddy and sugar mummy combo.

The movie starts at the meeting of a witch coven. A little girl named Princess is laid out on a mat and looks weirdly chill for someone who is surrounded by fire, water, and giant owambe pots she can fit in if the witches decide to cook her.

Before we go on, we need to discuss the witches at this meeting. You can tell that they’re fashionable but broke as hell because they’re rocking potato sack dresses and the cheapest wigs I have ever seen. Here are the witches we’re shown on screen.

Emeka Ani looks like he’s wondering what turn his career took that led to him dressed in a potato sack maternity gown, pearl necklace, and a Diana Ross wig.

As the witches are sashaying about and chanting nonsensical spells, Princess stands up and looks around at all of them like:

From the conversation that takes place, I gather that this Princess is the daughter of one of the coven’s members named Agnes, and she’s being prepared to become the coven’s weapon of mass destruction in their fight against God/heaven. They offer her something to drink in a calabash and she’s like…

…before drinking it and realising that she’s been scammed.

When they’re done with the ritual, Agnes takes Princess into the world to go cause commotion. Their first victim is a guy who Agnes intentionally annoys so she can fuck him up. She parks in front of his gate, preventing him from driving in. When the guy yells at her to move, she says:

And proceeds to do just that. When the guy goes into his house, he’s flogged to death by a floating koboko.

In the next scene, some other child that lives in the same compound as Agnes hits Princess too hard during playtime. Princess vexes and turns the child into a chicken.

Agnes is going about her regular life one day when she runs into a friend. After exchanging pleasantries with the friend, she somehow gets run over by TWO CARS and ONE BUS in the most implausible and chaotic accident scene in the history of film. Check it:

This makes me die laughing because how are you a witch who ends up getting killed in a car accident??

The witches get together to mourn Agnes’ death and transfer all her powers to Princess. Twenty years pass and Princess is now an adult who owns her own boutique. As she’s at work one day, a man named Desmond walks in. It’s established that they’re old friends who haven’t seen each other in a long time. Out of nowhere, Desmond asks Princess to marry him. This is insane for three reasons:

• They hadn’t seen each other in years.
• There was no mention of them ever being romantically involved at any point in their past.
• Desmond had no idea he was going to run into her that day. He didn’t know she owned the boutique.

Princess actually considers the proposal because it turns out she has feelings for him. She informs the coven during the next meeting about her plans to say yes to Desmond but they all laugh in her face, telling her this:

Princess gets upset and storms out of the coven’s meeting place, which is unintentionally hilarious because they’re in the middle of the bush. She abandons the coven and marries Desmond, an act that pisses the witches of so much, they steal her ovaries to ensure she never conceives a child.

After two years of marriage and no baby, Desmond’s mother takes matters into her own hands. She goes to a Babalawo to find out why Princess’ womb is giving what it’s supposed to give. The Babalawo reveals that Princess’ womb isn’t cooperating because of her ties to the coven. She tells Desmond what the Babalawo told her and when Desmond doesn’t believe her, she concludes that Princess must be using juju on him.

Desmond and Princess later decide to try adoption. The coven, who are still on a mission to ruin Princess’ life, get wind of the adoption plans and swing into action, They conjure a baby out of thin air and drop it at a garbage dump site.

A reverend sister finds the child and takes it to an orphanage lazily named MOTHERLESS BABIES HOME.

Desmond and Princess come to this orphanage and end up adopting the demon baby. Things are peachy for a while until the baby starts falling sick every two days, stressing Desmond and Princess out. Meanwhile, the witches have decided that on the yearly anniversary of Agnes’ death, a fatal accident will happen on the very spot she died. Here’s one of the accidents:

That’s right. A bus full of people was thrown off the road by a giant, flying cat.

For the next thirty minutes of the movie, nothing important to the story happens. It’s just a long montage of the coven members killing people who have nothing to do with the movie’s main storyline. There’s a scene where Desmond and Princess’ adopted demon baby turns into this in the middle of the night…

…and fucks up the engine of their car.

That’s it. That’s all he does.

Desmond decides that it’s time to get a pastor involved so they call one who, of course, ends up being played by Patrick Doyle. The pastor knows demonic treachery is afoot but can’t put his finger on it until the baby changes into a rat right in front of him. The pastor is like:

Desmond and Princess don’t see the brief transformation though, so he tells them to secretly watch the baby at midnight to see what happens. They catch the baby mid-transformation and take him to the pastor for a hot deliverance session. During the prayer, the baby transforms into the different members of the coven.

The baby dies, along with the entire coven.

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