Or lack of demand. Could be as many people selling as buying, or market making models see a shitty stock and know it's temporary spike. They also don't let people sell their options for too much when they didn't pay much for them. Happens plenty of times on penny stocks that don't have a reason to stay up for long.
Finally, the short interest %rate on hard-to-borrow stocks can get pretty high that makes the calls cheap because keeping them makes you lose on the %interest that could be collected by holding shares instead.