Abby (1974)
Article 5995 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-7-2021
Directed by William Girdler
Featuring Carol Speed, William Marshall, Terry Carter
Country: USA
What it is: Blaxploitation EXORCIST rip-off

A demon accidentally released by a Bishop takes possession of his son’s wife, a woman named Abby.

Apparently, this movie was pulled from circulation shortly after release as a result of Warner Brother’s suit against AIP for ripping off THE EXORCIST. That should give you an idea of how close the plot of this one is in comparison with the original. Still, there are differences. The cast is almost entirely black, for one thing. Second is that, like almost every other rip-off I’ve seen of the movie, the possession is of a fully grown woman rather than a child, no doubt giving the film-makers a better chance of dealing with the fact that the possessor is supposedly a “demon of sexuality”. The third is that, unlike THE EXORCIST, this one is simply not scary; in fact, I find if you consider it a comedy, it works better, especially as the demon’s lines are pretty silly stuff. At any rate, this one is abysmal enough that no one is likely to confuse the two movies. My biggest question has to do with the title of the movie; after all, the seventies was the decade of BLACULA, BLACKENSTEIN, and DR. BLACK, MR. HYDE, so why didn’t they call it THE BLAXORCIST?