"ABBY" & "BEYOND THE DOOR"
Click on pictures for audio clips
(1973)
Staring Carol Speed,William Marshall,Terry
Carter & Bob Holt as the voice of the demon Directed
by William Girdler
"...the story of a woman possessed"
In 1972 "The Exorcist" caused many independent
studios to grab a pen and try to capture the same box
office royalties of one of the all time best horror
films but little did the makers of "Abby" know that
by releasing this gem that Warner bros. would sue
their distributor American International Pictures for
ripping off their now classic story of a girl
possessed by the devil. This Blaxsplotation horror did gross some good box office before it
was pulled from theatres.
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This movie opens in Nigeria where a team including
churchman and archeologist bishop are trying to
determine if the belief in Christian and african
deities had their beginnings in the same antiquity.
Their search lead them to find a small box sealed
with a phallic symbol. The box is opened and
unleashed is a gray mist that kill's a couple of
them.
Meanwhile in Louisville Kentucky Rev. Williams is
happily moving into his new parish assisted by his
beautiful young wife Abby. While taking a shower an
errie force takes over Abby's body and she..Abby is
Possessed! From then on Abby changes from a sweet
loving person into a screaming slaving creature.
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In desperation, Rev.Williams places Abby into a hospital for tests to determine the trouble(remember The Exorcist). Abby then runs wild leaving and an altercation between them leave him laying on the floor as Abby flees for a night on the town. In conclusion, the Bishop Williams arrives and makes preparations to combat the Demon..Bishop Williams sets out on his grim mission to conquer the unconquerable, the unknown, the demon god in this blaxsplotation horror classic.
Audio Clip.
"Abby" is unavailable on video and has never been
since the law suite with Warner Bros.
UPDATE:
The law suite with Warner Bros. ended up in Girdler's(The Director) favor two weeks before his death. Though the rights to the film remain a mystery. MGM Home Entertainment recently bought the rights to a large catalog of old American International Pictures but it turns out "Abby" wasn't included on the list.
Thanks to Patty of the William Girdler.com site..
A Musical Intermission Audio Clip.
(aka-"Chi Sei?" - "The Devil Within Her" - "Who?")
(1974)
Juliet Mills - Richard Johnson
Directed by Ovidio G Assontis (aka- Oliver Hellman, HELLman!)
Here's another chilling supernatural thriller dealing with possession that is more amusing rather then horrifying.
Warner Bros. had their lawyers running a muck back in the 70's to protect their baby "The Exorcist". To me "Abby" was more of an original masterpiece when compared to this little Italian import that was a much more bias rip-off of the classic tale. To add some icing to the cake they added a touch of "Rosemary's Baby".
The mixture combined turns out comical results as Juliet Mills (from T.V.'s "The Nanny and the Professor")
portrays the victim Jessica, a mother of two with husband. The movie begins with their little boy's birthday and Jessica announces to her husband she is pregnant.
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The light's are turned off and candles atop of the big cake are blown out and the next thing we see is sweet innocent mom spewing up blood in the bathroom sink. Her husband runs in with concern and wipes Jessica's mouth as she utters out, "It's the baby". Music cue's in and the camera pans real close, for an over dramatic shot. The story now follows Jessica to the doctors office and her possession that really is her own infant inside her, that begins to incarnate her into a (badly dubbed voice) creature.
The writer's of this film Ovidio G. Assonitis and Richard Barrett so blatantly rip-off The Exorcist with all the works from a head spin to a bonus scene of a full body spin (Is she on a turntable?), a couple of levitation scene's, not one but two pea soup vomit scene's to a horrible foul mouthed demonic voice over. It all had me in stitches from laughing so hard. This film is so bad that it's good. There's a hysterical scene where Mills see's a banana peel on a city sidewalk, picks it up and chows it down. In "Rosemary's Baby" it's Mia Farrow chowing raw meat. In a T.V. possession/baby rip-off, it's Barbra Eden eating a large plate full of raw meat in, "The Stranger Within".
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With the success of "The Exorcist" and the controversy surrounding
"Beyond The Door" it became so successful at the box office in 1974. Import distributors used it's name on Mario Bava's unrelated film "Shock" and re-titled it to "Beyond the Door 2", in 1976. The name was borrowed once again in 1989 for an unrelated direct to video release, which was produced by Assonitis titled "Beyond The Door 3".
What's extremely strange about this Italian rip-off is that Warner seemed to have failed with getting this film out of distribution. This film is much more of a incarnation of "The Exorcist". "Abby" managed to be thrown out of theatrical release along without being giving a chance to be seen on home video or television.
Maybe it had to do with the fact that "Beyond The Door" was an Italian production and "Abby" was American?
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"Beyond The Door" was released, re-relesed, on home video and aired on television numerious times.
It is now out of print and hard to find.
This film has a U.S. running time of 108 min but there is a longer print of an additional 15 min or so. I'm not sure to what these scenes contain. I've been looking for a copy for a while now. I've seen a bootleg of it at a convention in New Jersey a few years back but didn't pick it up, but should have!
With the recent re-release of "The Exorcist" dubbed "..:The version you never seen" Maybe will see "Beyond the Door: The Version You may not Want To See" released somewhere in the home video format,
Anchor Bay are you listening??
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