A minister's wife becomes possessed by a demon that was probably unleashed by his father while he was excavating in Nigeria. If you take 'The Exorcist', 'The Amityville Horror' and 'Scream Blacula, Scream', and mash them all together, you have 1974's 'Abby'. I was not expecting much from this film and maybe that's why I am SO shockingly surprised at it's quality. It's not "so bad it's good", it's just good! Although the disco music seems out of place in a horror setting like this, the acting is decent and the story is well told. There is no doubt that the plot is a REALLY close copy of a much more popular movie, but to me that doesn't hurt it one bit. In fact when you see the lead character Abby starting to act weird, you almost feel true sorrow for her and her family because if you ever watched 'The Exorcist', and I'm sure 99.998% of you saw that film before this one, you have some idea of what is in store for them all. Because of Abby's age, they are allowed to show a little more sexual deviance which is a nice evil touch, especially from a minister's wife. The special effects are well done and the constantly changing voices within the possessed lead female are great. The movie itself has a very creepy element to it and it is a little more action packed than it's big studio twin (slightly older twin). In fact, if you just look at it as a sequel to 'The Exorcist' rather than a rip off, I think you'll enjoy it much more. Trust me, Friedkin would much rather have 'Abby' as his sequel than the real 'Exorcist Part 2'! The crew of 'Abby' had plenty of original ideas outside of the film that they were copying and the movie deserves a lot more respect.
