Alicia
I love this movie so much
Curapedi
I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.
Nayan Gough
A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.
BA_Harrison
Take the essential ingredients of William Friedkin's The Exorcist, add 'fros, flares, fried chicken and funky grooves, and what you have is Abby, the 1974 demonic blaxploitation flick from director William Girdler that unsurprisingly received a great deal of attention from a very unamused Warner Brothers legal department.Just like The Exorcist, the film's supernatural events are kick-started by the discovery of an ancient artifact by an elderly man of the cloth—in this case, it's a small carved box depicting the powerful sex demon Eshu that is unearthed by African-American bishop Garnet Williams (William Marshall). And just like The Exorcist, the discovery of this item results in a case of possession—only instead of a twelve year old girl, the victim is the bishop's daughter in law, Abby Williams (Carol Speed). Within a matter of days, God-fearing Christian Abby is transformed from a gospel singing pillar of the community into a blasphemous, vomiting, sex-mad harlot, eventually driving her desperate husband Rev. Emmett Williams (Terry Carter) to enlist the help of his father to cast out evil Eshu.Instead of the classy style of Friedkin's movie, Girdler's effort is cheap, trashy and unintentionally hilarious, which in my book makes it almost as entertaining as the film it so blatantly rips off. Speed attacks her performance with gusto, coughing, drooling, puking, speaking in guttural fashion, getting slutty with total strangers, and even appearing in cheesy demon make-up for several subliminal flashes that simply scream 'plagiarism'; meanwhile, those around her play their roles with absolute sincerity, doing their utmost to look concerned and frightened (but failing badly).Despite not being in the slightest bit original, shocking or scary, Abby is easily one of the most watchable (ie., funny) Exorcist rip-offs I have seen; I say 'get your mitts on a copy', even if it is the VHS-quality DVD release that seems to be the only version currently available.
udar55
Bishop and Archaeologist Garnett Williams (BLACULA's William Marshall) unleashed a demon in Africa and it travels all the way to the US to possess his daughter-in-law Abby (Carol Speed). Things move quickly as Abby starts cursing, vomiting, abusing her husband Emmett (Terry Carter) and attacking an old lady. Garnett returns to the US to exorcise this demon but he, Emmett and Abby's detective brother Cass (Austin Stoker) must find her first as she has disappeared into the city.This is pretty cheaply made but entertaining as hell. Speed is quite over-the-top at points but it all works. Hearing the deep base voice throwing obscenities is both hilarious and shocking. The rest of the cast handles it all well, keeping a serious face during the absurd proceedings. Director William Girdler wastes little time (the film runs 85 minutes) and delivers a few atmospheric bits, like when the entity is first released in a cave and when it enters the Williams' house. Warner Bros. apparently successfully sued AIP and got this pulled from theaters. A shame really because, outside of a foul mouthed demon, there is very little similarity and I doubt WB owns the copyright on films about demonic possession.
domino1003
I recently bought "Abby," more out of nostalgia than the actual film. I was 7 years old when I saw this at a drive-in. The film gave me the creeps and gave me nightmares for over a month.A lot can change over the years, you know. Things that creep you out at 7 may just simply make you howl with laughter at 37.Such is the case with "Abby." Carol Speed plays Abby Williams, the caring and loving wife of Emmett, a minister(Terry Carter), who have just moved into a new home and life seems to be o.k. Until Abby starts foaming at the mouth, and talking about the size of her husband's...parts. Was she the victim of toxic mold in her house, or has she become a druggie? Of course not! She has simply became the new host of a sexual demon, who was accidentally released by her father-in law, Bishop Williams (William Marshall)while he was on an archaeological dig.By today's standards, the film is laughably bad. The storyline has enough holes to resemble a fishing net and a lot of questions remained unanswered (Like, who paid for all the damage during the exorcism at the club?).The people behind the film was sued by Warner Bros. because of the similarities between this film and "The Exorcist," and you can see why they would take action (Levitations, spewing mouth, foul language), but what film HASN"T ripped off "The Exorcist?" ("Beyond The Door" was a rip-off, but they weren't sued. Possible racism issue here? You decided).The DVD quality is not up to snuff (It's a bad copy),but for the die-hard fans of this film and of the genre (Blaxpoitation,horror,or bad cinema), this would have to do.
FieCrier
"The Blackorcist," as this was supposedly nearly called, is actually not as blatant a rip-off of Exorcist, The (1973) as Chi sei? (1975) AKA Beyond the Door, or Seytan (1974) AKA The Turkish Exorcist. The latter in particular steals many scenes shot-for-shot (though not actual footage), but does actually steal same recording of the music "Tubular Bells."Abby is pretty enjoyable. I saw the Cinefear DVD of it, and hopefully some other company will be able to do a proper transfer of the film at some point. Credit to Cinefear for getting it out, though, and even including some extras.Abby is sort of the equivalent of Linda Blair's character in The Exorcist, but Abby is not a young girl but a young married woman; her husband and father-in-law are both priests. I'm not certain what denomination they were. The father dresses like a Catholic priest with black shirt and white collar, but has a wife and son. The son wears a khaki shirt with a white collar.The father unwittingly releases a demon in Africa, which for some reason possesses Abby in the US. The demon causes Abby to swear rather profusely - I was surprised.If a new DVD is ever released, there was some Greek, Hindi, and an African language spoken by the demon and the priest, and it would be interesting to get some optional subtitles for those scenes. The text of the lawsuit against the movie would also be interesting.
