In as much as Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett are concerned, there’s nothing much better than placing a bunch of people into a house and then watching them get killed off one by one. It’s a simple but effective conceit, one that has powered at least two prior movies in the duo’s relatively short filmography, starting with their 2019 breakout hit, Ready or Not, and continuing into 2022’s Scream reboot. They’re back at it again with Abigail, a ribald and blood-soaked horror-comedy that plays suspiciously like Ready or Not, if one replaced that film’s homicidal rich family with a homicidal rich girl ‒ who also happens to be a vampire. As Melissa Barrera’s Joey exclaims after the titular Abigail (Alisha Weir) has broken out of her chains, dressed ironically in a little girl’s ballerina outfit, “we’ve kidnapped a vampire!” To which Kathryn Newton’s Sammy responds, “a ballerina vampire!”
Gillet and Bettinelli-Olpin, part-founders of film and television production company Radio Silence Productions, have quickly developed a cult following, based largely on the strength of their often-inspired blend of grotesque gore gags and ironic humor. In 2019, their style felt like a breath of fresh air, especially amid the relative staleness of post-Conjuring era studio horror. Ready or Not also has a cogent – if obvious – thread of class satire running through it that, when combined with Samara Weaving’s star-making lead performance, makes for a genuinely fun time. In 2024, though, it almost feels like the duo is trying a little too hard to make sure audiences respond the same way. Almost every frame of Abigail feels strategically engineered to garner Ready or Not’s success, from the interior of the house down to the appearance of its blood-soaked protagonist, right after someone has spontaneously combusted all over them.
Thematic and stylistic redundancy aside, Abigail can be a lot of fun to watch. After an eclectic group of criminals (played by Barrera, Newton, Dan Stevens, Kevin Durand, William Catlett and the late Euphoria star Angus Cloud) kidnap a little girl from her father’s estate, they quickly retreat to a remote mansion on the instructions of Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito), their tight-lipped boss. Swearing them to secrecy, Lambert gives the motley crew a seemingly simple task: watch the girl until her father pays a hefty ransom, amounting to an eye-popping sum of seven million dollars per each member of the group. It quickly becomes evident, however, that Abigail is not a normal little girl. Soon, this unlucky gang are fighting for their lives against a seemingly unkillable monster.
As written by screenwriters Stephen Shields (The Hole in the Ground) and Guy Busick (Ready or Not), each of the criminals has a distinct quirk: Steven’s Frank is a former cop, Sammy is a spoiled trust fund kid, Durand’s Peter is a thick-headed brute, etc. etc. Joey (Barrera), the film’s de-facto protagonist, is a former junkie hoping to reunite with her son, whom she’d previously abandoned amidst her drug addiction. There’s nothing unsurprising about these rote characterizations, but the eclectic cast brings considerable enthusiasm to their parts.
As the group’s resident “tech expert,” Newton finds an impressive balance between irritating and sort-of-lovable. Similarly endearing is Durand, whose goofy performance could double for a decent live-action Bluto. Ever smarmy, Stevens has the uncanny ability to weaponize his undeniably good looks into playing unpleasant characters (see also: Adam Wingard’s grimy throwback The Guest), and Frank is another great addition to this canon. Though he exits early, Cloud briefly steals the show as stoner getaway driver Dean, showcasing his considerable promise and unique sensibilities as an actor. It’s poignant watching Cloud perform, witnessing the enormous potential of an actor whose career – and life – was cut tragically short last year. Everyone is clearly having a lot of fun, and in the movie’s best moments, that energy can be infectious.
Suiting its stately gothic setting, Abigail is handsomely shot by cinematographer Aaron Morton (The First Omen, No One Will Save You), who captures the movie’s fast-paced action in wide and kinetic detail. Gillet and Bettinelli-Olpin make some cheeky references to famous moments from horror’s past, including a sequence in a pool of rotting corpses ripped almost directly from Dario Argento’s Phenomena. As Abigail, Weir makes for a gleefully disarming horror antagonist. Whether she’s waltzing joyfully with the headless corpse of an unfortunate victim or doing balletic somersaults as she lunges for someone’s neck, the 14-year-old actress is impressively committed to playing a ruthless little monster. The movie also plays loosely with vampire mythology, frequently subverting genre expectations for some moments of pleasant unpredictability. Detached heads and limbs abound. Fountains of blood spurt from gaping wounds. People explode. Bela Lugosi might faint, but if you’re in, you’re in.
Still, whether it’s an over-insistent score by Brian Tyler or one of several cloying attempts at unearned sentimentality, Abigail can’t quite reach the heights of Gillet and Bettinelli-Olpin’s best work. Certainly, it’s a lot better and more rewarding than their work-for-hire Scream movies, but it would be nice to see the duo take a more ambitious leap on their next original outing. Given the opportunity, Radio Silence could produce a genuine horror classic, but the pseudo-Agatha Christie gorefest shtick is beginning to run its course (there’s an explicit reference to And Then There Were None just in case you couldn’t get it). To use a turn of phrase as obvious as most of the film’s humor, there’s just not that much to sink your teeth into. Does there have to be? Probably not – it’s a movie where someone shouts “a ballerina vampire!” – but it’s a work that will fade from memory far faster than the centuries-old vampire stalking its protagonists. In the moment though, its fangs are just sharp enough.
Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures
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