“I’m sorry about what’s gonna happen to you.”
I find myself struggling with vampire movies these days. I just can’t seem to get into them. Even old favorites have lost their luster. This happens to me occasionally – as it seems to happen to society at large – when some trope or genre or type loses favor. Zombies go in and out of style, so does 80s fashion (and haircuts) or sitcoms. Disco remains dead, apparently.
I’ll still see Sinners at some point, though, because it sounds like a departure from standard vampire stories, and I guess that’s what I’m looking for. Something different. I’m tired of the same evil outsider/dangerous sex/romantic other/social commentary/transgression storylines.
There are still a few vampire stories I’m happy to watch and revisit, but not many. I like 30 Days of Night for instance (and think there’s an implied setting there that could support more films – although I might be conflating the film with the comic). I love Let the Right One In. I’m sure there are more (and please feel free to suggest some in the comments), but the point is that I’m generally burnt on vampire stories, and so I avoided last year’s Abigail, despite what seemed like fairly decent reviews.
However, this week I found myself searching for “action horror movies,” due to our current theme, and Abigail came up in some of the lists. Having now seen it, I’m not sure I’d include it, myself. I guess there are enough elements of a heist film that it’s at least tangentially related. And that final third really does get impressively violent.
All of this rambling to say I didn’t want to watch another vampire film, but I’m glad I set that aside for Abigail.
The Medium
I watched Abigail streaming on Amazon. There is a Blu-ray and 4k release from Universal that looks to be a decent release and will go on my “opportunistic buy” list. For streaming options, Abigail is currently only available for subs on Amazon Prime. It can be rented or purchased at the usual online vendors.
The Movie
Abigail starts with a kidnapping. A young girl, the eponymous Abigail (Alisha Weir), returns home from a solo ballet rehearsal only to be met by a crew of criminals. She’s drugged, tossed in a van, and taken to a huge, rambling house in the middle of nowhere. Needless to say, things are not exactly as they seem, and the misfit crew of criminals are in far more trouble than Abigail is.
Dance and horror have had a long and bloody romance, from 1960’s The Vampire and the Ballerina to Suspiria (both), Stage Fright and even Black Swan. There’s something spooky about dancing for me – such freedom and constraint packaged together. There’s a tension there, and where there’s tension there’s always the possibility for things to go wrong. Sometimes the dance element is tangential to the horror (Suspiria 1977) and sometimes it’s integral (Suspiria 2018). Generally, Abigail falls in the former camp, but there are some moments…
The biggest issue with Abigail – and the problem I struggled with through the first third of the film – is that it pretends that the big twist hasn’t been given away by the marketing materials. Abigail is a vampire, we already know this from the poster, and the trailer really, REALLY gave it all away. Unfortunately, the film acts like we don’t know this. It’s one thing when the characters don’t know, but the film insists on acting as if its a regular heist film – right down to the “getting to know the characters” scene, where we’re introduced to the cast as economically as possible. There’s even a mystery set up as to who Abigail’s father really is, and the movie pretends that this revelation – he’s a near-mythical crime boss – is the important part of the film. (The film was originally intended as a re-imagining of 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter, a title which would really have completed the “giving away the twist” trifecta.)
This is a comedic film, but none of the first third lets us in on the joke. It wants us to take it all at face value, with the idea that Abigail’s shocking reveal “holy shit, she’s a vampire!” is some big surprise. There’s no reason for it, and it’s honestly a bit tedious watching these characters stumble around while waiting for the sharp, pointy teeth part of the program.
Luckily the film is blessed with an engaging cast, that (mostly) keeps us entertained during that wait. We’ve got the medic (and former addict), Joey (Melissa Berrera) – who forms a bond with Abigail through her own (abandoned) child. Frank (Dan Stevens, still perfecting his sleazeball portrayal), the ex-cop and nominal leader. Sammy (Kathryn Newton), the young hacker in for the thrills more than the money. Peter (Kevin Durrand), the muscle with more of a conscience than an intellect. Rickles (Will Catlett) and Dan (Angus Cloud) round out the crew as sniper and driver respectively, and Giancarlo Esposito has a small, but pivotal, role as the mastermind of the crime. Watching them argue, flirt, and annoy each other is fun for a while, but I did start getting impatient.
When things do go pear shaped, they do so with gusto, and filmmakers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not, Scream 2022) are not afraid to crank up the gore. Abigail is a full on murder machine, and she’s had hundreds of years to get good at it. (Though I did wonder why she was still taking ballet lessons at her age – maybe it’s a recent thing.) Our crew (let’s not call them heroes) is no match for her, and it turns out there’s a reason for each and every one of them to be there.
The details and elements of the rest of the film are hilarious and gory fun, and I found myself forgiving the early, slower moments. At least we got to know these chuckleheads a little before hell arrived in a tutu. While the film doesn’t really tread much in the way of new ground, the novelty value of seeing a little girl stab the shit out of a massive guy with his own crucifix does have its own charms. Not to say that the film doesn’t have some moments of poetry or genius – there’s a scene where our beleaguered characters burst into a small theater to find Abigail performing a routine with the headless corpse of Dan. It’s almost weirdly poetic. It’s also fun to see what elements of the vampire mythos the writers have decided are true (like how dynamic sunlight can be) and which ones (that crucifix for instance) are lies.
The twists and turns of the final 20 minutes or so are actually a great melding of heist films and horror movies, as alliances are made and broken and you start to wonder who, if anyone, you should root for. The final scene might be a bit trite, but it worked for me and I was happy to see who made it out alive – or unalive.
The Bottom Line
Abigail is an entertaining meld of kidnapping/heist film and all out gory monster movie. I might be burned out on vampire films in general, but this one managed to sing enough new notes to keep me interested and having a good time. While the film spends too much time pretending that we don’t all know what the twist is, the crazy energy of the rest of the movie means it doesn’t sour the whole experience. The cast does a good job keeping us invested – particularly Weir, Stevens and Berrera – and the gore and black humor is a ton of fun. While not at the apex of horror/dance related films, it’s well worth a watch or two.
