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| ABBY (1974) |
Shortly after the box-office success of “The Exorcist” in 1973, studios flooded screens with cheap, American and European knock-offs that played second-run theaters and the drive-in circuit.
From Italian films like “The Return of the Exorcist” and “House of Exorcism” to Spain’s “Exorcismo” and Turkey’s hysterically funny “Seytan,” film makers cashed in on the hottest craze in cinema: Satanic possession.
Even backers of the original “Exorcist” produced a terrible sequel, “Exorcist 2: The Heretic.” That film was followed years later by the equally bad “The Exorcist 3” and two separate, completely different versions of what was, essentially, “The Exorcist 4.” Let’s hear it for another shining example of Hollywood originality. How could anyone dare to think he or she could duplicate the success of the greatest horror film of all time?
Now, here’s where the fun begins. Buried in this huge, overflowing pile of rotting, stinking garbage of “Exorcist” sequels and cheesy rip-offs are two small gems – movies that are wildly entertaining simply because they are so pathetically awful.
