Abigail opens in theaters April 19. This review is based on a screening at the Overlook Film Festival.
Under all the viscera and bloodshed of the horror-comedy Abigail, there hides a redemption story. A mother becomes the parent she couldn’t be to her own child, and a daughter receives the care and protection she never found at home. Such pathos stand out in a movie like this, but never detract from the thrills – or the fact that the mother is part of a motley crew of kidnappers, and the daughter is a vampire in a tutu.
With enough killer one-liners to awaken even the most dormant sense of humor, the newest film from Scream VI directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett combines the themes of the Hotel Transylvania movies, the mechanics of a slasher flick, and the setup of a “one last job” crime thriller. It’s similar enough in tone, setting, and structure to be a spiritual sequel to Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s Ready or Not, offering an even wilder take on the cat-and-mouse ultraviolence of that sleeper hit set in a swanky old house.
The charm and the novelty here is in the assortment of seasoned crooks who have come together for what should be a highly profitable assignment: abducting young ballerina Abigail (Alisha Weir) and demanding a hefty ransom from her wealthy father. Picture the Scooby-Doo gang, if those paranormal investigators had pitch dark pasts and were entirely unacquainted before hopping into the Mystery Machine for the first time. That we witness their friendships being forged from scratch makes their reactions and apprehensions feel organic. They’ve agreed to not share their real names to ensure anonymity in case any of them is apprehended; their boss for this job (a characteristically suave Giancarlo Esposito) baptizes them with code names.
The least terrible of the kidnappers – and thus our rooting interest – is Joey (Melissa Barrera), who’s tasked with caring for Abigail while the crew awaits its payday inside an ostentatiously furnished mansion. Screenwriters Guy Busick and Stephen Shields tool this pack of archetypes for maximum laughs, with the exception of former military man Rickles (William Catlett), whose role as Joey’s impromptu love interest mostly fades into the background.
Based on Joey’s educated assumptions about her accomplices, Frank (Dan Stevens) is a corrupt cop, twentysomething Sammy (Kathryn Newton) is a hacker from an affluent family, Dean (the late Angus Cloud in his final onscreen role) is a juvenile getaway driver, and Quebecois gentle giant Peter (Kevin Durand) is just mindless muscle. How does Joey fit in here? She’s a recovering addict riddled with motherly regret. A desire to do right by her child forges an emotional connection between Joey and the neglected Abigail.
Barrera has carved out a space for herself in genre projects, including Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s now-tainted Scream revival and this year’s offbeat romance Your Monster. In Abigail, there’s a bruised determination to her gaze that communicates the significance of Joey’s objective. That self-assurance imbued musical dramas like In the Heights and Carmen with gravitas, and it’s even more resonant when applied to a final girl trying to survive one hellish night with a bloodsucker. Not once do we doubt she has the intelligence and resilience to survive. She has a reason to, and Barrera makes us believe it.
The filmmakers, to their credit, keep things focused on the chaos unfolding in the mansion: No flashbacks, only the bare minimum of backstory. The early revelation that Abigail is the offspring of a powerful vampire (and is also one herself) sets a dual hunt in motion: The kidnappers, trapped inside the mansion, become prey for Abigail as she prances around in unabashedly campy fashion and feeds on her “guests.”
Weir’s deranged pirouettes grow tiresome after a while, but the playful malevolence of her performance shines late in the picture. She’s especially good when Abigail holds her ground against power-hungry Frank, who eventually looks like a character straight out of The Lost Boys. (Dan Stevens’ continued predilection for playing amusing, often villainous weirdos continues unabated – and he has another one coming up in next month’s Cuckoo.) As Abigail’s relationship with Joey morphs into mutual understanding, it provides just enough parent-child drama to tinge the movie with some poignancy without overburdening it.
Abigail proves its horror bona fides with a handful of effective jump scares and copious gore. But the movie’s ability to consistently draw comedic blood is its main attraction, whether it’s riffing on well-known vampire tropes or leaning into the lawbreakers’ inept attempts at neutralizing a supernatural threat. The components may be far from original, but nearly impeccable comic timing and casting choices render Abigail an over-the-top crowd-pleaser whose winking silliness often disarms.
