Of all the imitators spawned in the wake of 1973’s The Exorcist, why did Warner Bros. legally suppress Abby? It is hardly a Xerox, even if director William Girdler (Grizzly) attempts an uncomfortable medical-test scene and also has his possessed protagonist orally expel fluids — not pea-soup vomit, but that watery foam my shih tzu yaks up on the carpet instead of the tile.

Abby is infamous for being the blaxploitation genre’s take on William Friedkin’s aforementioned film, following other Afro-centric boogeyman-benders as Blacula, Blackenstein and Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde. (I guess The Blaxoricst was deemed too crass?) The God-fearing Abby (Carol Speed, The Big Bird Cage) and her reverend hubby, Emmett (Terry Carter, Foxy Brown), move into a new home while Emmett’s dad, Prof. Williams (William Marshall, the two-time Blacula), investigates a cave in Nigeria that once was the site of black-magic rituals. In doing so, he opens a box that unleashes a demonic spirit that somehow — Girdler does not explain it — enters Abby’s body half a world away, causing her to masturbate in the shower.

At first, signs of her soul takeover are fairly benign, like stuff blowing around the room — the kind of paranormal activity that can be defeated with a paperweight. But then shit gets real as Abby deliberately slices open her arm with a knife, curses in a deep voice (“I’m not your ho!”), kicks Emmett in the nuts and laughs about it, and tries to hump the male clientele at her marriage counseling office — a real practice-killer, that. The prof hurries home to play Max Von Sydow to his son’s Jason Miller before this Linda Blair lays every dude in a bar within a six-block radius. The devil literally made her do it!

A step above Girdler’s usual level of awfulness begets entertainment, as Abby turns out rather well, rip-off or not; “opportunist” is a more correct term for the director than “thief.” Marshall is, as always, a commanding presence, and it’s as if the rest of the main cast rose to the task. Speed delivers a solid and sympathetic performance, except when she is called upon for lip-and-tongue action, and as brothers, Carter and Austin Stoker (John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13) make an appealing pair of grounded heroic Everymen. Cartoon voice actor Bob Holt deserves some credit for embodying Satan’s pipes in order to sell Abby’s Ol’ Scratch routine, but I’ve got to give it up to Girdler: His not-quite-subliminal cuts of the demon’s face register as legitimately disturbing. —Rod Lott

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Popcorn exhibits a deep, abiding love for the movies: the content, the concessions, the venues, the experience. That it does so within the constraints of a slasher film severely limits its audience, both then and now. Their loss.

Hungry for funding, a class of film students decides to put on a one-night-only triple feature of horror — or, as teacher Tony Roberts (Amityville 3-D) pronounces it, “har-ar.” The B titles selected for exhibition in the abandoned Dream Land theater all were released originally with William Castle-style gimmicks, which the kids aim to recreate with full ballyhoo:
• Mosquito!, an Atomic Age tale of giant-bug rampage, in the three dimensions of “Project-O-Vision”;
• The Amazing Electrified Man, a black-and-white Poverty Row shocker with Tingler-esque wired seats, aka “Shock-O-Scope”; and
• The Stench, a Japanese sci-fi stink bomb in “Aroma-Rama.”

While cleaning up for the night of 1,000 frights, the students unearth a dusty reel of an avant-garde short made by acid-tripping cultist Lanyard Gates (makeup artist Matt Falls). Years ago, the guy killed his family at the Dream Land screening of his film. While his body never was identified, good-girl student Maggie (Jill Schoelen, 1987’s The Stepfather) recognizes him as the star of her recurring nightmares. The reason why will be as evident to viewers as the identity of the killer punching the tickets of those in attendance.

Although equal time is not in the cards, Popcorn’s punch comes less from the villain and more from the movies-within-the-movie, pieces of each we see projected with tongue planted firmly in cheek. Director Mark Herrier (aka Billy from the Porky’s trilogy) took just enough care to make the fake films look enough like the real deal … or perhaps the credit is due to Popcorn’s original kernel colonel, Deranged’s Alan Ormsby, who wrote the script, but was fired from helming after production began. Whoever deserves the applause, Joe Dante took the facsimile-flick idea to an even more nostalgic degree just two years later in his underrated Matinee, but of course, he had the means (read: studio budget) to provide such a polish.

Smarter than it gets credit for, Popcorn is able to do a lot with a little. While it would be interesting to see the result with more money and less behind-the-scenes turmoil, what we’re left with is worth its weight in artificial butter. —Rod Lott

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