Press Rewind - The Shape-Shifting, Blood-Sucking, Light-Skin Demon That Terrified Nigerians

Karishika remains one of the scariest Nollywood movies of the home video era.

In the mid-90s, a shape-shifting, blood-sucking, light-skin demon terrified Nigerians. 

She was the queen of demons, and her sole mission on earth was to capture as many souls for Lucifer before the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Now, this is not an episode of 'Nkan Nbe', an investigative TV show that exposed the activities of the dark world (think X-Files in reality TV form). It is the synopsis of the Nollywood (home-video era) hit movie Karishika released in 1996.

During the production of this movie, Christianity in Nigeria fixated on the big apocalyptic event - the rapture. The big message from the pulpit was to give your life to Christ before the trumpet blows.

The Mount Zion Film Productions movie Perilous Times released in 1992, was the forerunner for the influx of these types of movies. Karishika jacks its premise from the Christian film.

In both films, Satan sends a femme fatale to the world to bring as many children of God as possible to the dark side before the second coming of Christ. In the Gospel flick, an introductory scene opens the film before we dip into Hell.

In Karishika, we see Lucifer hold a meeting with his minions in the opening scene. It underlines the urgency of this movie which came out as the world braced itself for the Y2K doomsday that never came.

Also, the theme of barrenness and waiting on the Lord for the fruit of the womb in Karishika was hardly new territory. It was a common theme of home video movies of the 90s and early 2000s (check the seminal Nneka the Pretty Serpent).

Yet we can't bash Karishika as a copy-and-paste film. It brought in horror and sold shock. The opening scene is a bore as it subtly does its best impression of a Deeper Life sermon as it touches on materialism, indecent dressing and safe sex.

The graveyard scene makes up for the lengthy diatribe of the opening scene. Accompanied by the infamous theme music, Karishika levitates from a grave. This is one of the most iconic scenes of the home video era. After this, she sucks a man’s blood like Dracula. In three scenes, we already have Lucifer, graveyard porn and vampirism. This was Ebipejo Lane at its creative best.

One of the Nollywood it-girls of the moment, Sandra Achums, is the best actor in this film. Bob-Manuel Udokwu plays the role of the obligatory pastor. And Becky Ngozi Okorie makes a good first impression as the titular character.

Despite the performances of these three, Karishika is a combination of boring scenes and shocking moments. Karishika controls the tempo of the movie. When she shows up in a pastor's office for deliverance or kills him mid-coitus, it tickles a middle-class viewership steeped in conservatism.

When a lady gives birth to a tuber yam in the film (a scene enshrined in the home video silliness hall of fame), it is hilarious and shocking.

The horror aspects in Karishika were enough to make the movie a must-watch back then. Today, not so much. It represents the best of Nollywood in the 90s and the silly bits of it. The plot devices in this movie do Karishika little favour.

Karishika devotes itself to horror porn rather than the plot, a trademark of most movies in this genre in Nigeria at the time. Half camp and half evangelical, Karishika remains one of the top ten horror movies of the 90s, which is a legacy well deserved.

You can watch Karishika below;