Abby, by William Girdler, is a movie about a young girl who reveals a dark secret about her father-in-law over time. When Garret, her father-in-law, was away on a trip in Nigeria, he found an old box with engravings on it. He was interested as to what it was, so he attempted to manipulate the carvings and try to open the box. This led to the “spirit” inside the box to unleash and disturb everything around Garret, including the floor, tools, and even the workers. When the spirit gets released, it goes across the world to attack Abby and turn her into a monster, as if the body is being possessed by the spirit. I think this fact also ties back to Get Out and something being trapped inside your body. To further explain, a spirit is being trapped inside of Abby’s body just like how Chris was being trapped by his girlfriend’s mom’s words. Emmett, Abby’s husband, is terrified of what’s happening to her and decides to confront the spirit, just as Garret realizes what has happened. When Garret realized that the spirit taking over Abby’s body is linked to Eshu, which is a powerful deity, an exorcism was decided on. The scene of the exorcism happening was my favorite because it was very intense, and it blended in African spiritual knowledge that Garret learned during his time away. It was an interesting and different exorcism than you usually see during movies. At the end of the film, the exorcism succeeds, and Abyss is free from the spirit. However, the film ends by thinking about the clash between African and Christian beliefs, such as faith too. This film also relates to Eve’s Bayou in a way because Garret also had a secret that was uncovered, such as Eve’s father. The spiritual aspect of this film also related to Candyman because of how Candyman took over bodies in that film. As this class continues to move forward and more movies are being shown, it is clear to me that so many movies have connections to one another and relate to each other. I find that very interesting because that way I can connect different movies we’ve watched in class and also differentiate them. In conclusion, Abby was a great film showing exorcism and African spiritual beliefs, but I think it was made more to demonstrate the spiritual beliefs than exorcism to give an educational aspect as well.

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