{"id":16301,"date":"2017-07-09T22:20:14","date_gmt":"2017-07-10T02:20:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=16301"},"modified":"2017-07-09T22:32:19","modified_gmt":"2017-07-10T02:32:19","slug":"blaxploitation-horror-blackenstein-1973-abby-1974","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=16301","title":{"rendered":"Blaxploitation Horror: Blackenstein (1973) + Abby (1974)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Blaxploitation<\/a> genre – often low budget crime & action films, packed with new and veteran African-American talent – ran roughly from 1970-1979, but its peak years 1972-1975 yielded a massive wave of productions, with more than a few delving into the horror realm.<\/p>\n

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Lesser known indie efforts include the arty vampire flick Ganja & Hess<\/strong> (1973), Frankenstein<\/strong> riff Blackenstein<\/strong> (1973), zombie entry Sugar Hill<\/strong> (1974), and the self-explanatory Dr. Black, Mr. Hyde\u00a0<\/strong>(1976)\u00a0but the best-known are American International Pictures’ The Thing with Two Heads<\/strong> (1972) with a racist white dude sharing headspace with football star Rosey Grier, the vampire diptych Blacula<\/strong> (1972) and Scream Blacula Scream<\/strong> (1973), and The Exorcist<\/strong> rip-off Abby<\/strong> (1974).<\/p>\n

Blackenstein<\/strong><\/a> was recently beefed up as a special edition Blu-ray from Severin (with cooperation from Xenon Pictures and Vinegar Syndrome), but Abby<\/strong><\/a> is still an orphan film because no one seems willing to resolve the lawsuit which had AIP pull the film and all prints, keeping the movie out of circulation for decades.<\/p>\n

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Actually, this beautiful poster is quite accurate!<\/p><\/div>\n

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Bootlegs abound, but no legal DVD transfer exists, and in my review of Abby<\/strong> I opine on its ongoing unavailability and genuine merits as one of the more inventive blaxploitation horror films.<\/p>\n

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NOPE. There is NO tool-wielding caveman. NONE.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Blackenstein<\/strong> was far luckier, enjoying a home video release in an expanded cut, and Severin’s BR sports both theatrical & TV editions, with extras on the film’s making and producer-writer Frank Saletri who was murdered in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n

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Mark R. Hasan<\/strong>, Editor
\nKQEK.com<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviews of two blaxploitation classics: the newly mastered Blackenstein (1973) from Severin on Blu + William Girdler’s Exorcist knock-off Abby (1974), still missing on disc.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16318,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[6],"tags":[5200,5195,5196,2562,5197,2563],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/Blackenstein1973_featured.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-4eV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16301"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16301"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16301\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16336,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16301\/revisions\/16336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}