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, in honour of the remake coming out soon, I will be recapping the iconic horror Nollywood movie, ‘Nneka The Pretty Serpent.’
I get that this was made in 1992 but this fonts are overwhelming.
‘Nneka The Pretty Serpent’ has been on my list of potential SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO fodder for while. So with the remake coming out soon, I decided to bump it to the top of the list. For the people who want a little bit of backstory before watching the remake.
We owned a VHS tape of this movie in my house when I was a kid. The tape’s pack had the title character on it in the middle of her transformation into a cat and that shit gave me nightmares. I swore I’d never watch it again but here I am, watching it for work.
Capitalism wins again.
The movie starts with a woman holding a live chicken and screaming at a river. From her monologue lets us know she’s been ridiculed by everyone in the village because of her inability to have a kid. So she’s come to the river goddess with an offer too good to refuse.
And then tosses the chicken in the river.
RIP to that chicken.
After the opening credits, we meet Nneka (Ndidi Obi). It’s never actually stated but Nneka is the kid that the river goddess gave the woman in the opening scene. Nneka is hanging out with her friend, Nkechi (Ngozi Ezeonu), and from the way they’re dressed, you can tell that they’re the 90s version of happening babes. They’re approached by a woman named Mrs Ogbonna who tells Nneka this:
Nneka and Nkechi read Mrs Ogbonna for filth and she goes home to take matters up with her husband, Mr Ogbonna. He gaslights her by insulting her for attacking someone (Nneka) that has done nothing to her. Enraged, she calls him a:
He slaps her across the face, expecting her to be quiet but she fights back and proceeds to whoop his philandering ass.
And the entire time, I’m like:
Sadly, their maid, Uloma, separates them before things get ugly.
We’re introduced to two characters named Ify and Tony.
They’re a couple but Ify is scared that Tony might be taking her for idiat. She tells him this and to calm her mind, he takes her to his village to meet his family. When this happens, I’m like:
Taking you to meet his family doesn’t mean shit. He can still leave you barefoot and pregnant on 3rd mainland bridge at midnight when he decides to move mad.
As revenge for embarrassing her in public, Nneka goes to the Ogbonna household to force-feed their son poisoned bananas. When Uloma, their maid, is like “Who the fuck are you?” Nneka just goes:
And Uloma complies.
The next time we see Nneka, she’s chilling on an abandoned road at night in her cat form. It looks like she’s just chilling but it turns out she’s on a mission to kill Mrs Ogbonna. She stops Mrs Ogbonna’s car and stabs her to death with her long ass nails.
I don’t understand why she looks constipated sha.
After killing his wife and son, Nneka decides that she’s done with Mr Ogbonna and blocks his number…or whatever people did in the 90s to stop people from calling them. She moves on to her next victim.
Tony.
She sees Tony at a party and decides that he must be hers. She’s so determined, she tries to sex him up in front of his fiancée, Ify.
Because Tony is a banker, she lies that she uses the excuse of wanting to open a domiciliary bank account to get his phone number, get him to take her to dinner, and makes him spend the night at her house.
In the middle of the night, Nneka rings up her spiritual husband.
When Satan asks Nneka what she wants from Tony, she says this:
And she proceeds to do just that. For no fucking reason.
Because Nneka is a messy bitch who lives for drama, she goes to Tony’s house when she knows Tony isn’t home and argues with Ify. Tony returns home mid-argument and asks Nneka why she came there knowing he wasn’t home. Like a true chaotic queen, Nneka says this:
And leaves.
Tony runs after her, begging for her forgiveness. He even says this:
This is the ultimate proof that no matter the decade, MEN ARE SCUM!!!
A few days later, Ify walks into Tony’s house and finds him sucking lips with Nneka. When she asks what the fuck is going on, Tony is like:
And throws her out of his house. When Tony’s friends, C.Y and Emeka, ask him why he dumped Ify, he tells them it’s because he loves and wants to spend the rest of his life with his new love, Nneka. Eneka and C.Y laugh and burst Tony’s bubble in the meanest way possible.
But he accuses them of being jealous and goes ahead to marry Nneka. In retaliation for bad-mouthing her, Nneka kills C.Y by setting his face on fire.
It doesn’t take long for Nneka to suck Tony dry. (Not literally lmao.) He loses his job at the bank and she makes him a waiter at the restaurant he opened for her back when he was loaded.
After that, Nneka goes…You know what?
I was going to recap the sequel too but I now see that this movie is 10% movie and 90% filler. It’s mostly just Nneka ruining Tony’s life and killing anyone who tries to save him. So to save time, I’m skipping to the end of the second movie.
From what I can see at end of the sequel, Ify broke Tony free from the Nneka’s shackles at some point but Nneka wormed her way back into their lives disguised as someone else. Now she wants to take Tony to the marine kingdom so she can have him to herself. First, she has Ify run over by a car because why the hell not? Then she telepathically calls Tony to join her at the beach so they can swim off into the sunset.
Tony’s friend, Emeka, and a pastor find Tony at the beach and begin a hot casting and binding session.
The prayers seemingly don’t work and Tony keeps walking to Nneka. Just when we think all hope is lost, he grabs her neck and chokes the shit out of her until she dies and turns into a CGI skeleton.
Until next week, y’all.
