Abigail is in UK cinemas now from Universal Pictures.
Synopsis
Children can be such monsters. After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a £50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.
Review
Whether your preference is for them to be sparkly (Twilight), lethal (30 Days of Night) or comedic (Renfield), there’s always an audience rabid for big screen vampires. Especially for films which break the mould, adding something new to a genre with over 100 years of history. Scream duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Taylor Gillet along with writers Stephen Shields and Guy Busick are hoping to capture the zeitgeist with this week’s release of Abigail.
The team better known as Radio Silence is hanging their hat on the hook of a child monster. The titular Abigail (Alisha Weir) is an otherworldly force of nature. She leaps, screams and tears through the film like a rabid animal with Weir putting all memories of her delightful Matilda squarely in the rear-view mirror. Across a tight 109 minute runtime the team sets out to introduce a mythology behind its supernatural creatures as well as introducing a team of criminals to act as bait whilst also ensuring the film has the narrative thrust to keep the audience on board.
If you’ve seen any of the marketing for Abigail then the nature of the character has likely already been revealed to you. So it’s interesting that Radio Silence chooses to hold back the reveal until the film’s second act, using the first to setup the criminal gang and the remote setting where all the killing will eventually go down. For those who go in blind it gives the film a great twist just before chaos ensues. But for those already clued in it can make some of the setup frustrating as you wait for the inevitable unmasking.
The criminal gang tasked with kidnapping ballerina Abigail, supposedly the daughter of a New York underworld (literally) crime boss, includes medic Joey (Melissa Barrera), former-cop Frank (Dan Stevens), wheel-man Dean (the late Angus Cloud to whom the film is dedicated), hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton), former military shooter Rickles (Will Catlett) and muscle man Peter (Kevin Durand). The group has been hired by the mysterious Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) to bring the girl to a remote location and hold her for 24 hours whilst he arranges for a ransom. When the deal is done each will earn $7 million for their troubles. Simple right? Well not when it turns out the accomplished dancer is less a little girl and more a vicious, centuries-old creature of the night.
The ensemble is really well cast. Barrera, having worked with Radio Silence of their Scream movies, brings a similar energy to Joey as she did to Sam. There’s some added nuance thanks to her troubled past which is teased across the narrative. But Joey is our entry point in to the world of Abigail and Barrera’s likability does the job perfectly. Stevens is also key to the success of Abigail. His presence on screen is undeniable and it’s clear that he’s having an absolute blast on set every day of filming. Whilst the rest of the ensemble is still great, it’s these two who were glued to in moments when Abigail isn’t on screen.
Abigail has clearly cast Cloud, Newton and Durand for the comedy skills. Whilst the film is never an outright comedy, there’s a light-hearted approach to much of the dialogue which creates a fun push and pull within the script. It’s not often we see a man the size of Kevin Durand running from a tiny ballerina vampire and so the production works with that absurdity to make it both impactful through gore and hilarious at the same time. It’s a bit of a fever dream but once which instantly puts a smile on the audience’s faces.
Taking a page out of the Ready or Not book, the rest of the film takes place in the isolated mansion where the crooks are keeping Abigail. There’s no great escape. Just a series of claustrophobic and increasingly gory encounters as the now loose vampire picks off the crew one-by-one. It all starts with a beheading and that’s the tamest of the film’s incredible series of kills. Abigail soars when it leans in to its outlandish and unashamedly camp gore. The film avoids predictability through some inspired and inventive vampire-lore which breaks from tradition. But when it does decide to dust those pesky creatures of the night it does so with a visceral frenzy which was enough to make one unwilling victim at my screening vomit. It achieves this through a mix of practical and visual effects, both of which are excellent on screen. Coming in a modest $28 million in budget, Abigail never reaches beyond its means and instead puts its money where it’s fang are in excellent set design and stunt work.
Despite a busy cast and ever increasing kill-list there’s still plenty of room for twists in the script. Beyond the revelation that the titular character isn’t the innocent child she appears, Abigail is able to pull off several inspired twists which complicate matters further. Some are more obvious than others. But regardless of quality each reveal is a moment to relish in the film right down to its dying breath. A cameo appearance in the final moments is perhaps nothing more than vampire fan service but could open up plenty of storytelling opportunity if a sequel were ever mooted.
Verdict
Abigail is deliciously blood soaked. From its cool cast to its fiendishly explosive gore, the film is a fun experiment with the vampire-genre for an audience game to break with tradition.
⭐⭐⭐⭐
