Movie Review: Aníkúlápó Season 2 conjures returns and myths

By Enitan Abdultawab

The second season of Kunle Afolayan’s renowned Nigerian series, Aníkúlápó: The Ghoul Awakens, comes with a darker mythological perspective and a bolder storyline.

The season, which debuted on Netflix just like the first one, balances political intrigue, folklore, and the human cost of power as it develops in the Old Oyo Empire.

Starring the likes of Bimbo Ademoye, Sola Sobowale, and Taiwo Hassan, Aishah Lawal, Owobo Ogunde, alongside new cast members like KieKie, Antar Laniyan, Saidi Balogun, Teniola Aladese, and Saga (Adeoluwa Okusaga), the epic film is a bold, visually striking season that challenges narrative ambition while delving deeper into its mythological foundations.

Synopsis : From resurrection to chaos

Bashorun Ogunjimi’s frantic trip from Orun Apaadi’s flaming afterlife back to the living world commences season two. Punished for his former greed and savagery, he returns as a ghoul, doomed to feed himself by consuming human life-force. A season where power, survival, and vengeance collide is set in motion by his ominous presence.

Meanwhile, Prince Aderoju (Adeoluwa Okusaga) returns to Oyo after a long absence, only to face the political and emotional fallout of his half-sister Omowunmi’s abduction by the people of Ede. Tradition demands her marriage to Prince Asiru, Karunga’s younger brother, to prevent conflict between the kingdoms, but Omowunmi’s resistance and emotional turmoil complicate matters. Aderoju’s secret efforts to bring her home spark tensions with Alaafin, the Oyo king, and threaten to unravel fragile alliances.

Elsewhere, Arolake, having survived the first season’s climactic violence with her partner Akin, seeks a peaceful life away from Oyo. Yet tragedy and ambition remain close: her pregnancy, the pressures of survival, and the envy surrounding Akin’s musical prospects draw her into a web of personal and supernatural challenges.

Thematic allure

Aníkúlápó: The Ghoul Awakens continues the series’ signature exploration of Yoruba folklore. This time, however, it is enriched with horror elements and moral complexity. Bashorun returns as a ghoul and his being embodies the series’ meditation on power as predation: it is not inherited or earned but stolen, feeding on the lives of others. This is because Bashorun’s defiant passage through the corridors of life and death renders him almost lifeless. Thus, he has to devour a human being in order not to remain a ghoul completely.

The season also engages with interpersonal and political dynamics. Aderoju’s defiance of tradition, Omowunmi’s struggle for autonomy, and Arolake’s navigation of love and loss reflect human dilemmas within the rigid Oyo societal expectations. While they struggle to navigate them, they suffer. Aderoju, after he escapes from the near danger at the hands of the Ede people whilst rescuing his half-sibling, later encounters Bashorun during one of his love escapades with a spirit-deer-turned-lady (KieKie). Omowunmi, while on her quest to liberate herself, ends up in the shackles of Portugese slave traders. As for Omowunmi, she suffers loss again. This time, her child, one which she has laboured to conceive for years, is kidnapped.

In the same vein, the uneasiness that lies the head that wears the crown returns. The Alaafin of Oyo and his family finds solutions to the fate of Aderoju who is found alive but unconscious, trapped between breath and death for weeks. In a desperate attempt to preserve the prince, an invited priest offers the monarch the horrific choice to sacrifice another child. The monarch declines. However, the terrible fact that Aderoju has another child living in secret is revealed by the Arosonyin, the invited priest.

Cast allure

The ensemble cast is one of the season’s strongest assets. Kunle Remi’s Saro is absent for much of this season, but Owobo Ogunde’s ghoul Bashorun commands attention with a chilling, deliberate intensity. Bimbo Ademoye’s Arolake delivers a performance that balances resilience, vulnerability, and moral complexity, particularly in scenes confronting her past and motherhood.

Supporting performances from Sola Sobowale, Taiwo Hassan, Gabriel Afolayan, and the younger actors, including Abike Dabiri-Erewa’s Iyalode, add depth to a sprawling narrative. Across the board, dialogue in Yoruba, with touches of Portuguese and other regional languages, lends authenticity and ceremonial weight, reflecting historical and cultural fidelity.

Cinematographic allure

The season does well in visual narrative. With immersing realism, cinematography depicts the splendor of the Oyo Empire, hallowed forests, and far-off places. A feeling of place, period, and cultural distinctiveness is maintained by rich and evocative lighting, set design, and costumes. However, some scenes undermines tension with effects that can seem excessive or inadvertently humorous, especially in the portrayal of Bashorun’s ghoul. Despite this, the cinematography creates a fully textured audiovisual experience by enhancing suspense and emotional resonance through the use of silence, orchestral plays, and sound design.

The take-home

Aníkúlápó: The Ghoul Awakens is an aesthetically spectacular continuation of a popular Nigerian franchise. It blends mythology, political intrigue, horror, and human drama, creating a narrative that questions, captivates, and occasionally overwhelms.

However, it is evidently seeming like a series that aim to touch many angles at the same time. Hence, this is gradually making it seems complicated. From Alaafin to Aderoju to Omowunmi to Arolake and Bashorun, the series have a lot of questions to answer.

Also, the love escapade of Aderoju and KieKie is too hasty. One begins to wonder how a human being and a deer-turned-human get so romantically attached within a very short period of time.

Also, the series drag the exact essence of the ghoul of Bashorun. There are eyebrows raised on his return, especially through the flaming fire of hell, and his roaming state. Thus, establishing his roaming state for a whole season only beckons one thing – there might be more to come before his fate is decided. Therefore, the title essence ‘Anikulapo’ might either be lost or restored (if Saro, by any means, is brought back to life).

However, it takes as a 6/10.

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