Abigail: Film Review
To everyone who was introduced to Alisha Weir in Matilda the Musical, you’re about to see a whole new side of her in Abigail.
The film follows a team who have been hired to kidnap a young ballerina named Abigail (Weir) and keep her captive for 24 hours while their boss asks her father for a $50 million ransom. The team members don’t know each other and are given Rat Pack-inspired nicknames: Joey (Melissa Barrera), Frank (Dan Stevens), Sammy (Kathryn Newton), Peter (Kevin Durand), Dean (Angus Cloud) and (the non-Rat Pack name) Rickles (Will Catlett). The job sounds easy, however, things take a turn when they become locked in the house and Abigail becomes a vampire.
Abigail, a reimagining of the 1936 monster movie Dracula’s Daughter, is very silly but everyone throws themselves into the absurdity and is so much fun. This is the most entertaining horror I’ve seen this year! Some moments feel inspired by last year’s horror hit M3GAN – a deadly dancing doll replaced by a deadly dancing ballerina – but Abigail is much more horrifying, with plenty of gore, disgusting kills and sooo much blood.
This was made by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the duo who directed Ready or Not and Scream 5 & 6, so they know how to make an enjoyable horror. Abigail might not reach the heights of the previous three – it’s a bit predictable at times – but I really appreciated its sense of humour. It doesn’t take itself seriously and I laughed a bunch of times. In particular, Durand was a great himbo and Newton was hilarious as the freaked-out person.
The premise could have run out of gas really quickly but thankfully, the directors assembled an eclectic mix of characters, who naturally have different ideas about how to escape the house and defeat the monster. Joey and Frank are the leaders of the pack and they routinely butt heads about how to do things. But the star of the show is Weir as the scary Abigail – she is very unnerving as a centuries-old vamp in a child’s body.
Abigail may not be perfect but I had a blast with it!
In cinemas from Friday 19th April