Anyway, the film came out in 1974, ironically on Christmas Day, while The Exorcist was still making people pass out in theaters across the country and right away Warner Bros noticed that it mimicked their movie in an almost scene-for-scene way. Blaxploitation films were all the rage at the time and for a brief moment director William Girdler actually considered calling this movie "The Blaxorcist". Knowing that this movie was a rip-off, I guess he decided that making it too obvious would cause Warner Bros to notice even sooner than they did. Before Warner caught on though, Abby did turn a pretty good profit before its producer American-International was sued and Abby was taken out of theaters. The lawsuit was finally settled four years later. Unfortunately, William Girdler died shortly before that and never saw a penny of the profits.
Anyway, replace the little girl with a minister's wife, and change the demon from an Iraqi Pazuzu to a Nigerian Eshu and it's The Exorcist with a black cast instead of a white one. William Marshall who famously played the vampire in Blacula plays the priest who performs the actual exorcism. Lots of us though remember William Marshall as The King of Cartoons from Pee Wees Playhouse, but I don't wanna give my age away that easily.
The film starts off with Bishop Garnet Williams telling his class that he's leaving America to study demons in Nigeria, in passing he mentions that his son is a doubtful minister who doesn't really follow his father's beliefs and is relatively down to earth. Once in Nigeria, he finds a vessel of some sort in a cave, opens it and a gust of wind and dust flies out letting us know that he's released something sinister.
Meanwhile, his minister son and his wife Abby are moving into a new house, with the help of the church deacon, a rather timid guy (who can't act to save his life), and Abby's mother, played by Juanita Moore who was an Oscar nominee for her supporting role in Imitation of Life starring Lana Turner. Makes you wonder if she was proud of this movie, I'll give you a hint, few were.
The sex demon Eshu finds its way to their new house and possesses Abby who soon starts having a tad bit more of a brutal sexual appetite, has a deeper voice, and occasionally foams at the mouth, no doubt with the help of some Alka-Seltzer tablets. She doesn't curse as much as Regan did in The Exorcist but her insults are just as jarring and certainly out of place for a minister's wife. Her husband first thinks she's on drugs, then assumes it's a mental illness, but the poltergeist activity that occurs when she's around makes him a bit suspicious, so he calls his dad who's still in Nigeria and blissfully unaware that the demon he released is tormenting his daughter in law.
Abby is sent to the hospital for tests which of course show nothing out of the ordinary and she's judged as just being mental. After busting out of the hospital, she arrives back at home around the same time that Bishop Williams arrives there after a frantic call from his son concerning Abby's bizarre behavior change. Abby's voice drops several octaves and she makes a sexual reference about her father-in-laws' privates at which point the Bishop puts the pieces together and finally figures out that the sex demon he released has possessed Abby. After making some furniture fly around she leaves and goes nightclubbing, time for Abby to have some fun.
She makes it to a club where for some reason almost everything from the furniture, wallpaper, and what people are wearing is orange. She sleeps with the only white guy there who creepily resembles the comedian Gallagher and does a lot of W.C. Fields impressions, then runs into the church deacon at the same club and has sex with him in his car. What he was doing at this kind of club, having dinner there no less is never explained.
Her husband, his cop brother, and the Bishop father-in-law arrive at the club and exorcise Abby, practically destroying the place in the process. Afterward, after Abby has time to heal, we see the happy couple getting on a plane to go on vacation somewhere, to celebrate their post-demon possession happiness. The End.
Much like The Exorcist, rumors abounded about creepy things happening on set during filming, like the generators failing whenever actress Carol Speed would be filming scenes as the demon. At one point while filming, a storm producing violent tornadoes blew through and Carol Speed and Juanita Moore had to shelter under a table to avoid the shattered glass raining down on them from windows being blown out.
All in all, this is an incredibly entertaining movie that fortunately can now be found in its entirety on YouTube. Definitely worth checking out just to see the overwhelming similarities with its white people movie counterpart.
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