Returning to her Nigerian hometown from the UK, Lisa
(Stephanie Okereke) can’t help but noticing how much everything has
changed: The villagers are afraid to go out at night, kids are found dead
with bitemarks on their necks, and even she herself starts having
nightmares about a mysterious man ... Finally, Lisa turns to her grandpa (Justus Esiri) to find out
what this is all about – and learns about a chieftain Chioke (Muna Obiekwe) who
turned his back to the village many years ago to live with an outcast,
Chioma (Stephanie Okereke again), but the priestess Atunma (Miltex Ogiri) who was
promised to him swears bloody revenge – and so she has Chioma beaten to death when she is highly pregnant, with
Chioma clinging to life just long enough to give birth. Later, Chioke returns to
the village with the boy, but he is brutally murdered by Atunma's goons and the boy is
cursed to become a vampire ...
Back in the now, Lisa meets mysterious Max (Muna
Obiekwe again) and soon figures he must be the boy all grown up from
grandpa’s tale – but still, she falls in love with him. When Lisa’s
fiancé from the UK Richard (Collins Onwuochei) arrives in her village
though, she is torn between him and Max – until she learns that she is
only the pawn in a game concerning Max, the Chosen One supposed to
get rid of the vampire, and she leaves with Richard. But Max scares
Richard off and takes her back with him. But when she wants to sacrifice
herself to him, he just can’t suck her blood, only later, when he is
beaten half to death, she forces her blood down his throat in order to
save him, even if that means to give up her own life – but eventually,
not only do both survive, but Lisa’s love has also lifted the vampire
curse from Max, and they can from now on live a life as a normal human
couple ...
One just cannot measure a Nigerian movie like Vampire's Call by
first world standards: Sure, the film was made on a shoestring, the few
CGI effects are godawful and make no narrative sense, on a technical
level, the film is hardly above amateur fare, its direction is
functional at best, and at approximately 3 hours (the normal duration of a
Nigerian movie, actually), the movie is way too long and is thus filled up
with way too much dialogue that leads to nowhere. Still, one just can't
but admire cast and crew for making the film anyhow, and their enthusiasm
and love for filmmaking that's so often amiss in first world films, does
often shine through. That all said, Vampire's Call is by no means a
classic and never will be, but if you can accept its shortcomings, you
might just as well be entertained.
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