Highway to the Grave

So once again I am visiting Liberty Ministries of Nigeria and presenting a review of another one of their messages against the occult.

Background:
Highway to the Grave is made by Liberty Ministries in Nigeria. Liberty first caught my attention when I watched a Dispatches documentary titled "Saving Africa's Witch children." This film showed how young children are violently and socially abused after erroneously being accused of witchcraft.

Among the perpetrators of this myth are Liberty Ministries and their leader Helen Ukpabio. Literature distributed from this church makes claims that "If a child under the age of two screams in the night, cries and is always feverish with deteriorating health he or she is a servant of Satan" despite malaria being too common in Nigeria.

End of the Wicked shows how Liberty thinks children are recruited into the occult, however their other movies warn about the other alledged dangers of the occult and warn people only Jesus can save them. Among them is Highway to the Grave.

Plot:

So the movie opens with a woman waking up from a nightmare where she is chased by what appears to be a pupiless eye of Sauron. We flashback to a meeting with a witchdoctor and the woman who claims she is targeted by evil spirits. He sacrifices a goat to a river in order to appease the spirits.

We now cut to a Nigerian highway. A woman in a red dress apparently hitchhiking is offered a ride. The woman tells the driver her name is Sonya and he starts chatting and then feeling her up. She suddenly dissappears and in a panic the driver abandons his car. His running is observed by a group of overacting women. He eventually comes to a friend who advises him to go to a witchdoctor who tells him he is targeted by evil spirits. The witchdoctor (Who is different to the previous one) tells him the spirits will leave him along if he runs naked in the market square 7 times before midnight.

Despite complying with the instructions, Sonya appears before the man once more the next day and he dies of a heart attack. (And some overacting)

So we find that the strange women are a bunch of ghosts who target people for destruction Seducing a man due to be married causing him to miss his wedding and getting hit by a car. Seducing another and rendering him impotent. Seducing a preacher. Many of these victims go to a different witchdoctor who demands something embarrassing or outright immoral (one demanded the head of their mother)

This cycle starts coming to an end when Sonya tries another victim, starts to seduces him then turns into a coffin to terrify him. He consults another witchdoctor who tells him to leave his house. The witchdoctor however moves himself in while the victim and his wife lives in a shack somewhere. The wife (Played by Helen Ukpabio herself) talks to her pastor who tells her only Jesus can save them. Sonya attempts to intervene however she is defeated by the pastor yelling at her. The pastor then drives out the witchdoctor from the house and the film ends with.

Intended Message:
This movie clearly seeks to assert the existence of malevolent entities and states that only turning to the Christian god Jesus will help them. All others are depicted to be ineffective and fraudulent.

Final thoughts:
Having watched other Liberty Films productions, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece. The acting was over the top in some scenes, particularly with the leader of the ghosts.