Abigail

Abigail follows in the tradition of using a woman's name for the film title: Carrie, Christine, Coraline, Mandy, M3gan, Pearl (with MaXXXine on her way), and these are only from the horror genre. Titling is not the only thing lifted from elsewhere. The story sees a gang of crims carrying out a kidnapping only to find the tables turned when they realise the victim is not so....fragile.

It's very difficult to speak about this film without giving the game away, and that's possibly one of the reasons why it didn't grab me. It really would have been enhanced had the marketing not laid out the 'twist' but these are the times we live in. By plugging this as a vampire ballerina film, the gang's surprise is not shared by the audience.

Once that realisation is out of the way, it settles into a pretty tread-worn rhythm. Expendable members are dispatched, relationships are made and betrayed, blood and viscera are spilled. The film goes through the motions until the final act, when it picks up the pace, almost too quickly. A lot seems to happen without much time to take it all in.

Melissa Barrera is great as Joey - it's the first time I've seen her in anything, she has a bit of star quality, I reckon. Alisha Weir as Abigail is precociously talented, sweet and petrified one moment, snarling and rabid the next. Dan Stevens, Giancarlo Esposito and Matthew Goode add nasty vibes support.

The background colouring is of bad parenting and of mistakes made, some unfortunate and some avoidable, that differentiate who we - and Abigail - are allowed to exonerate. There's even an ugly little hint of a domestic violence scenario with Dan Stevens' Frank as a monster father preying on Joey and Abigail's mother and daughter. That is until the real dad shows up to elevate the menace.

Through this film, we are reminded of others, a bit of a constant in recent pop culture movies. There's a little whiff of Keyser Söze to the Kristoff Lazar character. The dabs of From Dusk Till Dawn are all over it. And the overarching style places Abigail in the newish sub-genre of Gore-com, joining the likes of Cocaine Bear and Violent Night.

There's nothing too original about Abigail but it should hoover up the teenagers' pocket money, and if you like seeing folk projectile spewing blood or people falling into pools of offal (and who doesn't?), then this is right up your splatter alley.

Abigail is showing around Australia now. 

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Now, I haven't seen this, but Merv highly recommends a previous film from Abigail's directing pair, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, called Ready or Not (2019). Matthew Goode's late appearance reminded me of a much better film, Park Chan-wook's Stoker (2013).

(Film stills and trailer ©Universal, 2024)