Nigerian Movies That Terrified Us All

If you grew up in the 90s and early 2000s and your family enjoyed watching scary Nollywood movies, you need a hug.
Those movies were terrifying even with the horrible CGI, I donʼt even know why I was allowed to watch those films I should sue for child abuse because those movies scared me.
The posters for those movies alone were scary, and then there was that chilling sound when something terrible was about to happen. Do you remember it?
Blood Sisters
Starring Genevieve Nnaji and Omotola Jakande playing the titular blood sisters it was released in 2003. Genevieve hates her sister and kills her, marrying her husband and maltreating her children. Well, Omotola refuses to stay dead and haunts her evil sister.
One thing I found particularly funny about this movie was Omotolaʼs ghost looking both ways to cross the road. You are a ghost, you canʼt die trailer wonʼt jam you! Walk into traffic confidently.
Of course, I didnʼt come to this realization then, it is now that the movie can no longer scare me.
Above Death
I saw this and was terrified for days. Released in 2003, a woman is raped by a demon and gives birth to an evil child who terrorizes his family and everyone around him. Ramsey Nouah played the role so well that he went from everyone’s favourite heartthrob to an evil demon.
Blood Money
There used to be a whole genre of Nigerian movies focused on people performing rituals and killing others to acquire wealth. I enjoyed watching those types of films and they equally terrified me. Blood Money is one movie I can’t forget, it was released in 1997 it starred Kanayo O Kanayo, everyone’s favourite ritualist, Zack Orji, Sam Dede, Ejike Asiegbu and Francis Agu.
It was really popular at the time and was a commercial success.
The story followed the formula it usually does, the poor guy gets convinced by the rich guy to acquire wealth through devilish means and the consequences of his actions come back to haunt him.
One line that gave me sleepless nights was “it is blood money”, the mom of Zack Orjiʼs character would constantly whisper it after she was killed by her son for money. I couldnʼt walk into a dark room without scaring myself by remembering the line. It stuck with me for a while.
Sacred Snake
I watched that movie when I was nine years old so my recollection of it is hazy. I tried to do more research about it but I couldnʼt find it anywhere so everything I say will be based on what I remember.
A village has a snake they regard highly and when it comes around no one is allowed to hurt it. Well, one guy accidentally kills it and he has to atone for that sin. The special effects in that movie were so bad, they took a clip of a snake from a different source and put it in the movie, it was very obvious so It wasnʼt believable.
But it still managed to scare me because I dislike snakes, I remember the part where he killed the snake and had to bring it and show it to the king, they got one of these big furry blankets with snake-like prints and made it out to be the snake.
This made me stop using those types of blankets because I thought if I did it would turn into a snake. It was a stressful time for me, took me a while to get over it.
Karishika
Who hasnʼt heard of Karishika? It is one of the most popular films of the home video era. It was released in 1996 and starred Becky Okorie who played Karishika, Bob Manuel Udokwu, Sandra Achums and others.
It followed Karishika a lust demon sent by the devil to lead humans astray and she did just that, you can say she understood the assignment.
And her main target was religious people. I will confess and say I never watched Karishika and everything I know about it was what I learned from my friends and research.
I tried to watch it four years ago but because of all the stories I heard, I couldn’t bring myself to, this weekend I will try again. I am older now Iʼm sure I can handle it. Or maybe not, Let’s see.
I can arguably say that nothing beats Nigerian horror movies of the 90s and early 2000s because even though the special effects werenʼt very good and many of the stories were predictable, the element of horror was undefeated. You would get a good scare, they don’t make stuff like that anymore.