I can’t remember the last decent vampire movie I saw, so thank the deities for… Abigail (now streaming on Peacock, in addition to VOD services like Amazon Prime Video), which is a gory film with a convoluted backstory. The film originated as a remake of Dracula’s daughterand was included as an entry in Universal’s Dark Universe horror franchise; but once that ill-fated idea fell through, the directing team of Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin (Ready or Not and the two most recent Shout films) took over and made the film under the banner Radio Silence. My expectations were low, as ShoutI felt like it was a rehash and a somnolent rehash of the mediocre Dracula movie. The last voyage of the Demeter persisted, but if anything can get an old cynic excited about vampires again, it’s Abigail.
ABIGAILSTREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The essence: We start off with what seems like a completely different movie. No, really. It’s a kidnapping thriller in which a group of misfit criminals break into a rich man’s mansion and steal his 12-year-old daughter for a $50 million ransom. It’s one of those thrillers that has become a mystery. Reservoir dogs-jobs where none of the criminals know each other’s names, so there’s no snitching, and they’re called names, and all that. Our protagonist is Joey (Melissa Barrera), who seems a little out of place with this group of freaks, probably because she’s the real protagonist with the big, soft, sympathetic eyes she uses to look at the photo of her estranged son on her phone. She’s also not thrilled to learn, moments before they break in, that their target is a little girl. But there’s money involved and a job to do, and her part is to knock the girl unconscious with an injection.
The others are more of a mixed bag of crazies: Frank (Dan Stevens) leads the team and wears glasses that tell us he’s as cunning and slippery as a Ferrari gearbox. Peter (Kevin Durand) is a man of powerful muscles but slow of mind. Rickles (Will Catlett) is the poker-faced sniper. Sammy (Kathryn Newton) is the brazen hacker. Dean (Angus Cloud) is the getaway driver with nothing but a couple of gum sticks hanging around where his brain should be. They kidnap Abigail (Alisha Weir) and meet with the mastermind of the plan, Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito), in a rundown mansion with a giant elevator shaft as its centerpiece (I wonder if it’ll come in handy if anyone needs it) and decor ranging from antler lamps to gross taxidermy to crumbling old frescoes. No, seriously, frescoes! I’m sure nothing bad has ever happened in this place. It needs some repairs, but after several thousand hours of work and exorcisms, it will be very cozy!
Being the good guy around here, relatively speaking, Joey comforts poor Abigail, who is still wearing her tutu from ballet rehearsal. Being the jerk around here, and the specific breed of jerk played by Dan Stevens, Frank threatens poor Abigail with his gun, and finds out that she is the daughter of a notorious billionaire who is rumored to have a henchman capable of “tearing people apart like an animal.” That might — the key word here being “might” — explain how one of them ends up with his head severed from his body in a rather disgusting and hilarious way. And just when you thought this gang of criminals had exchanged enough prickly banter to get to know each other — well, when people are fighting for their lives, they realize they’re not such good friends. In fact getting to know each other, especially their interiors, and extra-especially when those interiors become exteriors.
What movies will it remind you of? It’s no secret that Abigail is the vampire around here, and that she likes to zip and jet between chewing on her victims (it’s in the trailers and everything), so obviously the sequel needs to be… ABIGAIL AGAINST M3GAN! ABIGAIL AGAINST M3GAN! Someone has to do it ABIGAIL VS M3GANI mean, why couldn’t it exist in a world that gave it to us? Freddy vs Jason?
Performance worth watching: Barrera is a terrific final girl. And Weir gives her all to the demonic role (it’s great fun to hear this adorable little girl spout obscenities like a sailor who accidentally dropped the anchor on his toe). Stevens has her wildly sordid moments, and Durand delivers some well-modulated comedy. But I have to stick with Lisa Frankenstein herself, Newton, who delivers some witty one-liners and makes the most of the film’s most insane sequence.
Memorable dialogue: You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Stevens joke, “Sammy, those are fucking good.” onions“to the fool in charge of finding garlic to fight vampires.
Sex and skin: None.
Our opinion: In retrospect, the best joke of Abigail This is how it starts off a bit slow and dry, much like many other crime thrillers about feuding bad guys, and then subtly turns into one of the most outrageous comedies of the year thanks to a collection of off-kilter performances and exquisitely timed bursts of purulent blood. Horror movies are usually populated by characters I like to call inpidual characters, because the monster or killer or alien picks them off one by one, stretching the plot into a feature-length film. But they rarely feature inpidual characters with much personality. Abigail It’s unique in that it makes you mad to see the players die one by one, because it means they’re no longer around to say and do fun things.
On the other hand, they die in such gruesome and entertaining ways that you’re left with your mouth hanging open to mourn their deaths. The film works perfectly within the bounds of conventional horror (putting some morons in a creepy house and killing them), but it embellishes the familiarities with some visual eccentricities, some fun, silly twists, and a script that sets its talented cast up, with perfect pitch, to succeed. Abigail It’s a case where it’s not the material that matters but what you do with it, and Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin deliver with wit, a bit of suspense and some gloriously disgusting buckets of blood, just the way Grandma likes it.
Our calling: There are times when Abigail It makes no sense and it’s not a perfect movie, but I had a lot of fun watching it and I refuse to criticize it, so STREAM IT. Thanks.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
