Tonight's Horror Movie: Abigail (2024)
We all know how much it sucks to look forward to something that you think is going to be excellent, only to have it be a huge disappointment. On the other hand, we don't talk often enough about the pleasant surprise you get when you have zero expectations for something at all, none, but then it turns out to be a lot of fun.
I am happy to report that Abigail falls squarely into that second category.
I had no plans to see this flick. It had all the signs of something I would not enjoy. Released by a major studio, a vampire movie, and an obvious premise. But I heard a few people say it was surprisingly good, and it has Dan Stevens, who is a great actor (also very enjoyable in the new Godzilla x Kong movie). Most importantly, I was nursing a hangover and needed something to distract me.
I am very happy I decided to tune into this one. It is a LOT of fun. It has a great, balanced combination of comedy with "Holy SHIT!! WTF did I just see!!!!!" It won't really scare your pants off (though it has its moments), but it will entertain you. And that's what matters most. Also, this movie is gory as hell, but I'll get into that more in a little bit.
Let's dive in.
As I mentioned, the premise is very simple. A group of criminals -- some more professional than others, but most of them surprisingly competent -- kidnap the ballerina daughter of a rich gangster, ostensibly for $50 million in ransom. They are told by their contact Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito, Breaking Bad) that all they need to do is babysit the girl for 24 hours and the money will be delivered to them.
Of course, it is all a setup and they are soon locked into their safe house -- more like a safe mansion -- with a bloodthirsty, pint-sized killer Nosferatu in Abigail (Alisha Weir, Matilda The Musical). It's not really a spoiler to say any of this, it's all advertised in the trailer.
What makes the movie is not this setup, or even the few (fairly predictable) twists that come later on, but some great writing and pretty strong acting. Oh, and all the gore.
The criminals are not using real names, so Lambert names them all after the Rat Pack. The clear leaders of the group are former cop Frank (Dan Stevens, Legion) and former Army medic Joey (Melissa Barrera, Scream [2022], Scream VI). Along for the kidnapping are Peter, the muscle (the incredibly underrated Kevin Durand, The Strain), Marine sniper Rickles (William Catlett, The Devil You Know), hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton, Blockers), and wheel man Dean (Angus Cloud, Euphoria).
[Side note: the movie is dedicated to Cloud, who sadly died from an overdose of what appears to be every drug known to man last July.]
As soon as our villains are in the safe house, the mistrust begins and it is a lot of fun, again, if not entirely unpredictable. All of them, of course, have mysterious backstories and past lives. And they are each there for a reason. It's a bit similar to the setup of a Saw movie, but much more entertaining.
What also works is that the audience already knows that Abigail is a vampire. This makes for a solid second act of the movie, as everyone in the proverbial locked room tries to figure it out after one of the gang is brutally murdered. They first point fingers at each other, of course, then at a mysterious henchman of the gangster father who is in the house with them.
Before this drags out too long, however, Abigail fully reveals herself to them and the hunt is on. What makes this next act of the movie work is that Abigail doesn't want to just kill them all, she is like a cat playing with her prey (hence "Rat Pack"). She wants to toy with them and hunt them.
As the kidnappers-turned-kidnapped discover more and more about the house of horrors in which they are trapped, Abigail happily plays along ... until she wants to stop playing. It's also a lot of laughs watching the group figure out which vampire myths, abilities, and weaknesses are real and which are not (most of them are not in this story).
I won't spoil the final act, which contains its fair share of twists and turns. You'll see them coming, but they're still enjoyable to watch.
Throughout all of the cat-and-mouse play, this develops into one of the bloodiest, goriest movies I have seen in a long time. Now, normally I am not a huge fan of excessive gore fests, but it absolutely works with this movie. The blood and guts are simultaneously played as shocking and comedic, which is a credit to directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. You will laugh, but you will also be tempted to turn your head away in revulsion. Accomplishing both is not easy. Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz do a great job of using gore for laughs. The Saw and Hostel movies use it in a way that will disgust you. This movie does both. Abigail is absolutely a 10/10 on the Gore Score, but ... in a fun way?
As the tension in the movie ratchets up, Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett don't forget the comedy side of the movie, something other "horror comedies" are often guilty of. And the interplay between Abigail and her prey is mostly delightful (occasionally trite, but it's a forgivable sin), which is a credit to the cast and the writing.
Is it a perfect horror comedy? No. It has some missteps, particularly in the ending, which has more than a few flaws. That part dragged a bit too, but most of the movie was pretty well-paced. It probably would have been tighter at a clean 90 minutes or so, rather than its 110-minute run time.
I have watched a lot of horror movies that I thought were outstanding recently, and just as many that I thought were complete failures.
But I can't remember the last time I watched a horror movie and said, "Wow. Now, that was just FUN."
Abigail is that movie. I'm happy my hangover made me decide to watch it.