William Girdler made some entertaining 1970s movies, and Abby was definitely one of those. I really liked this movie and am very amused at how it willfully ripped off both The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. It was the 1970s so of course someone decided to make a blaxploitation horror movie centered around demonic possession. Too bad Warner Brothers suppressed this movie in different ways-I watched a subpar print of it via YouTube. Years later The Man is still keeping people down, I guess, and copyright law is wielded decades later to suppress cinema. Lame.
Carol Speed is great in the title role, swerving from being a nice lady to being possessed and out of control. William H. Marshall is the bishop who shows up to perform an exorcism and save her soul, aided by Terry Carter and Austin Stoker. Although certain parts don’t quite work, this is a pretty good movie in it’s own right and has some cool scenes.
I guess I found out what Don’t Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood was making fun of with the evil demonic girlfriend scene. I wonder if maybe this movie inspired Def By Temptation in some ways, and it probably did. Criterion should snap this up, release it and give Warner the finger by doing so. It would be the righteous thing to do.
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