‘Abby’ Is More Than Just A Rip-off of ‘The Exorcist’
This Black History Month, it’s time to talk about Abby (1974). This disrespected and nearly forgotten Blaxploitation movie is still considered an Exorcist rip-off and has never seen an actual release. The promising film was snuffed out when Warner Brothers sued them for copyright infringement. The studio claimed it was derivative of The Exorcist. It was immediately pulled from theaters and has picked up a cult following. While I was not around in the 1970s, I’ve seen both Abby and The Exorcist. I have a beef to pick with this lawsuit and the treatment of this underseen B-movie.
Abby should have become one of the greatest Blaxploitation horror films in the canon. The film was directed by William Girdler (Sheba, Baby and The Manitou) and starred Carol Speed (The Mack and Disco Godfather) in the title role. To make it even groovier, Blaxploitation legend William Marshall (Blacula and Scream Blacula Scream) was also in the cast. Aside from all the disrespected talent, it also stood out as an exorcism film featuring Black people. This is still all too rare, and I am saving that tangent for a bit later.
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Abby is about a Black woman and the ideal (read: subservient) Christian who puts everyone else before herself. Even her job as a marriage counselor finds her listening to people’s problems and waiting to be of service. Due to some shaky plot details, she becomes possessed by a demon who wants to have sex and cause chaos. Like many exorcism films, characters notice something is wrong because a woman becomes disagreeable and starts to take up space. This is why so many possession films are fun to view with a feminist lens, but I digress.
For me, Abby and The Exorcist are as different as can be. Not just because one had the Blaxploitation budget while one had actual studio money. Once you get to the heart of the film, Abby explores a weird Black women’s liberation. We watch Abby humble herself at every turn because society and her religion have taught her pride is a sin. We watch people talk about what a great woman she is in relation to how she treats her husband. Abby has a marriage counseling degree, she sings in the church choir, makes homecooked meals, and runs the home. She is doing too much, and we all want her to have a drink and calm down.
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Getting possessed is a bad thing, and we should definitely talk about how demonic invasion is a huge violation. However, it might also be the first time Abby has ever said a cruel word. I often write about Black girl rage and Rightfully Angry Black Women. I do this because society has conditioned our white counterparts to call us aggressive if it seems we might have a different opinion. The Angry Black Woman stereotype has been weaponized to the point that if we do anything other than smile and nod, we risk being labeled as a problem.
So, seeing Abby no longer beholden to being “a good Christian woman” is very cool. As most women who have begun to heal will tell you, “fuck likability”. While Abby ends with our lead getting back in line, I appreciate that she got at least a few days to live out loud. To wear clothes she would not dare, cruise the local bars, and get even a taste of a life she never thought to live under the patriarchal and Christian rules she’s trapped in.
One of the many tropes regarding Black people that the media continues to hold onto is the dutiful religious Black woman narrative. This feeds into the idea that we are there to serve. It is why badass actors like Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Alfre Woodard, Viola Davis, and Octavia Spencer get stuck playing similar characters so often. We are always the praying and helpful side characters ready to sacrifice ourselves. We are never the possessed baddie about to cause a scene. This is another reason why the genre needed Abby. It needs more Black women characters allowed to wreak havoc, period.
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The possession subgenre is one of the many that you have to work at finding Black characters with substantial roles. I love my horror genre, but it will never be great until we stop defaulting to white leads. I am also tired of believing Black characters will finally have a moment to show up and see them get pushed to the side for the silliest of reasons.
The Exorcist: Believer made us believe we would finally see Black folks leading an Exorcist film. We expected to see Leslie Odom Jr. and Lidya Jewett play a single father and his daughter going through a hellish experience. Instead, they get sidelined immediately and forced to share their exorcism with their white friends whose daughter was also possessed. Before we could finish being frustrated, they were further shoved to the margins as legacy characters were shoehorned in without contributing to the story.
I was frustrated by the time we got to the cluttered double exorcism because Odom Jr. and Jewett were more than capable of driving this movie. However, in its quest to cater to the section of the population that would scream “woke” if the movie actually focused on Black leads, it refused to explore anything interesting. The Exorcist: Believer refused to believe in them and support the narrative we wanted. It quickly devolved into a mess that is not good, and only serves as another reminder of how far this franchise has fallen.
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I’ve had Abby on my mind a lot lately. The internet has been celebrating the latest version of Nosferatu, a film that is admittedly gorgeous but also extremely white. This has led to discourse on the character’s Dracula origins. Many of us know that Bram Stoker’s widow, Florence Stoker, sued the production team of Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror for a copyright violation and won. Part of the ruling was that all copies be destroyed. However, that clearly didn’t happen as Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror has become one of the most infamous vampire movies in history. Meanwhile, Abby is still getting ignored, and most of the people involved have passed away without ever getting their flowers. Many of them, sadly, didn’t even get to see my generation discover their movie by accident and start spreading the gospel via social media.
I get that copyright laws (and lawsuits) were different in the 1920s than in the 1970s. However, it’s still a tragedy that Abby has never gotten her moment in the spotlight. The film barely has anything in common with The Exorcist, and that lawsuit was ridiculous. All of us who discovered it because of Horror Noire are forced to watch the grainy rip-offs that live on Plex and YouTube. If given her day, this story of a Black woman being possessed by an entity that forces her to shake off the societal stress of being a Black woman in America to be delightfully evil for a moment would resonate with today’s audiences. Especially right now when Black women are beyond tired and trying to live through the monster that this country put back into office.
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Was Abby made because The Exorcist was popular? Obviously, yes. Even the director admitted that. However, as a 90s kid, I watched many slashers do the same to Scream. So, I have to wonder, where is the line? While they both open with exposition designed to explain how the entities are traveling to the states, that’s where the similarities end. I like The Exorcist and admit that it’s possibly the best exorcism movie I will see in this lifetime. However, it’s about a white and affluent family being terrorized by a demonic entity possessing a tween. It is completely different in tone, story, etc. I am not a lawyer, but I feel like this was a case of bias more than copyright.
As an aspiring screenwriter, I am told Save the Cat! is the most important book I will ever read. The second chapter, “Chapter 2: Give Me the Same Thing … Only Different!” breaks down how there are only 10 genres. It then fits popular movies, which have nothing in common on the surface, into these boxes. Whatever I think about the book, this exercise is a comforting reminder that very few of us will reinvent the wheel. Our work will be similar to someone else’s no matter how much of our soul we pour into it and vice versa.
So, in short, I think it’s time Abby finally gets her day. She deserves a restored version on an actual streamer. She’s earned a non-bootlegged physical addition with any extras that still exist. It’s time to open the schools and give her a shot at being a more mainstream title.
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