Movie Review: ABIGAIL

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: April 19th, 2024 / 04:45 AM

ABIGAIL movie poster | ©2024 Universal Pictures

Rating: R
Stars: Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Alisha Weir, Kathryn Newton, William Catlett, Kevin Durand, Angus Cloud, Giancarlo Esposito
Writers: Stephen Shields and Guy Busick
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Distributor: Universal Pictures
Release Date: April 19, 2024

Since it’s in the trailers and the artwork, it probably doesn’t count as a spoiler to say that ABIGAIL is about a vampire ballerina who looks like a little girl (Alisha Weir). What we may not necessarily know from the trailers and the artwork is that ABIGAIL is very good bloody fun, with filmmakers who seem to achieve everything they’re attempting to do with the movie.

We can see that Abigail comes from a lot of wealth and that she’s a fine ballerina before we know anything else about her at the film’s opening. This is because she is dancing SWAN LAKE all by herself in a vast auditorium with no audience, apparently for the sheer enjoyment of it. She is then chauffeured back to an enormous house.

Following Abigail are six criminals. With reasonable efficiency, they enter the mansion, where they sedate and kidnap Abigail. They then take their victim to another mansion, just as huge as Abigail’s home, except this one is old, dusty and creepy.

Here, the team is met by their boss, Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito), who has assembled them for this job. Lambert warns them not to use their real names, but instead gives them nicknames from the Rat Pack: Joey (Melissa Barrera), Frank (Dan Stevens), Sammy (Kathryn Newton), Peter (Kevin Durand), Dean (Angus Cloud), and Don Rickles (William Catlett).

None of them know one another, or even Lambert, from before this gig, so trust is in short supply. Lambert says it’s not important who Abigail’s father is, apart from the fact that he is so wealthy that he can pay $50 million for his twelve-year-old daughter’s return. All the team has to do is sit with Abigail for probably twenty-four hours, while Lambert negotiates the deal.

Joey is designated to make sure Abigail is comfortable and healthy, even though she’s handcuffed to the bed. Abigail seems frightened and upset; Joey promises she won’t let anything bad happen to her.

Even for viewers aware of where this must be going, there are plenty of plot twists. We also get commendable plot logic from the script by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick. Who are the team members really? Who is going to betray whom, and how? What the hell is actually going on here?

The filmmakers elicit not just our curiosity, but our investment. They have come up with their own vampire lore, so that neither we nor the characters can predict exactly what will or won’t work. We get attached to some individuals, and grow progressively more hostile to others. There’s even a little bit of emotional resonance, but it’s handled in such a restrained manner that we feel more like we’re noticing it than getting an obligatory dose.

Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett have a fine sense of visual style, and crack horror timing. They get in a few impactful jump scares, come up with some creative gore, and even a slightly new fang design.

They also commit to Abigail’s fondness for ballet, so that she often incorporates dance moves into her attacks. We get the sense that somebody involved paid close attention to that hallway sequence in M3GAN last year. Still, there is can be something almost supernatural-looking in classical ballet, and ABIGAIL shrewdly and elegantly plays this up as a motif.

Weir is excellent as the multifaceted Abigail and the rest of the cast is fully on point as well. (To say more about individual performances might give away details.)

The directors and screenwriter Busick are veterans of the likewise myth-bending and energetic READY OR NOT (as well as the two most recent SCREAM films). ABIGAIL is tonally reminiscent of READY OR NOT, with its steady acceleration and blend of humor, mystery and full-on horror. ABIGAIL demonstrates that the undead genre remains capable of being lively and enormously entertaining.

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Bloody fun with a little girl vampire ballerina

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Article: Movie Review: ABIGAIL

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