10 Blockbuster Rip-Off Films That Are Actually Worth Watching
7. Abby (1974)
American International PicturesIf youre going to rip off The Exorcist, this is the way to do it: by turning it into a Blaxploitation movie where the climactic exorcism takes place in a discotheque. From the dialogue (Whatever possessed you to do a thing like that?), through the heroines hilariously unconvincing transformation into a potty-mouthed demon in pancake make-up, to a scene where she violently checks herself out of hospital (Im going home, bitch!), theres enough here to make you wonder if the filmmakers were sending themselves up. Best of all is the sequence where the possessed Abby, whos also a marriage guidance counsellor, informs a couple that their problems stem not from an inability to share their feelings but from their lousy sex life. She tells the wife: Im gonna take your husband upstairs and f**k the s**t out of him!
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
