Looking back to my Propaganda Corner pages on my main blog, I'd thought I'd start again using a new, independent blog. There was one review I felt I could have done better. One I don't think I conveyed enough about this film. So here is my redone review of Liberty Ministries' piece "End of the Wicked." A movie that came to my attention while reading up about the stigmatisation of children who are claimed to be witches by the primitive Christians of Nigeria.
Background
End of the Wicked is a movie made in Nigeria by Liberty Foundation Gospel Ministries. A church run by the movie's director "Lady Apostle" Helen Ukpabio. This church is controversial in that it claims that children as young as 2 years old could be witches responsible for any problems in a town or village. This tends to have repercussions such as the unfortunate child being abused, beaten, abandoned or even killed by villagers or even family members. This movie seeks to highlight the apparent dangers of witchcraft as perceived by this church. While there are children depicted as witches, there as also a group of adults, including the mother of a main character who is subjected to a warped "motherly love". This movie seeks to demonise witches as has been the case for centuries, despite the majority of practitioners of witchcraft are peaceful and have no desire to cause anyone harm.
Plot
The movie follows the deeds of a christian idea of a coven. The movie's intro serves to introduce the members of this group who are depicted as black robed, and afflicted with various skin diseases. They are seen flying through a forest via cheap superman effects to a central meeting point. Here we are introduced to their leader "Beelzebub the Great" a man with heavy white makeup with a red jaw. After commanding his followers to transform into various animals he orders them to fill the coven's blood bank within the next 24 hours. We are then introduced to the Amadi family. Here we find that the grandmother of the family is a member of the "coven" and her works are causing her grandchildren to have bad nightmares. Her son, Chris the next morning tries to keep order in the house but is oblivious to the evil. During the "covern's" meeting, we find that Chris' mother, known in the group as "Lady Destroyer" actually seeks to destroy her son for reasons that escape me other than the possibility of being evil for the hell of it. She requests to Beelzebub to allow the "coven" to completely fuck up his life. As this goes on, the coven recruits various children including Chris' daughter. As Chris' life starts to plummet, starting with the pulling out of an important business deal, and a curse that makes him believe his wife is out to kill him, he confides to his mother. While playing nice, she takes him to a medium who attempts to lift the curse but is clearly unable to. While this goes on the witch children are causing havoc by wrecking a sleeping man's spine by eating a plate of meat on top of it and conjuring him to appear before him to blind him.
When word that her daughter is coming back to get married, Lady Destroyer pleads to Beelzebub to take her womb so she cannot conceive. She also continues her campaign against her own son by giving him nightmares about being killed by his wife. By disrupting an important delivery to his company, and personally futa-raping his wife. This downward spiral continues as Chris' sone is killed during a dispute at a football game. His maid gets killed by a freak electrical accident and yet he gets hauled to the police station and fined a hefty amount. So Lady Destroyer's curse begins to spread to her daughter too and it seems there is nothing but doom in the family's future until a pastor, played by Helen Ukpabio shows up. Lady Destoryer tries to curse the pastor, but apparently the name of Jesus Christ is too much for her. The paster seeks to convert Chris and his wife, but Chris is reluctant. Chris' wife becomes immune to her mother in law's power, but Chris himself is magically killed by a real animal sacrifice involving the death of a live goat (This does not appear to be fake)
So at Chris' funeral, the wife is accused of the witchcraft that killed him. She protests her innocence. Lady Destroyer attempts one last curse, but again it back fires and she is exposed and subjected to good old christian "justice".
Intended message
The message here it painfully obvious. The movie dipicts witches as purely malevolent for the sake of it. Willing to kill all loved ones and to destroy all around them. I beleive another message Liberty seeks to send is you can not trust anyone, friends or family. Only their "lord and savior". This can lead to some serious issues in forming relationships.
Final Comments
The effects are cheap. The plot is a joke, and there are issues such as why Lady Destroyer has such a beef with her own children. Apparently she cites being taken care of by her son as the reason, but fails to mention how so. I really wish they didn't have to kill an innocent goat to make this piece too. Not a pretty thing to look at. I would laugh at this movie if it wasn't so destructive. I know witches personally. My own mother is a witch and I do not fear her at all. The problem is, to justify the commandment of "Suffer not a witch to live", the "rightous" must make their prey look so "evil" and immoral as to appeal to the common sence of justice. I find it hypocritical that christians use guilt for lying regardless of effect to convert is so willing to employ such bullshit to justify such inhmmanity. Especially when the target of this "christian love" are mere children.
