Abigail

If is rare for a horror movie to give away it's twist in its trailer. And still rarer to hold your interest, after the aforementioned cardinal sin, for almost its entire length, because of the vivid characters, their banter and their gory endings.

The producers of Abigail did the first sacrilege before its release, leading to it crashing at the hustings.

The director and the script writers nearly pulled off a miracle by still making a gripping thriller, which looses some steam right at the very end.

This is an even- toned film. It maintains its momentum and its editing doesn't let the speed flag down. The last 20 minutes are slightly convoluted as if the writers couldn't think of a way to end it.

Liked it. Had the potential to be a real classic.

Everything in this movie is mediocre except the cinematography and the production design. I was looking forward to this due to me really liking Radio Silence's 'Ready or Not'. I was hoping for a fun horror comedy akin to that, but 'Abigail' ended up being as frustrating and obnoxious as their 2 'Scream' movies. It was however, better than 'Scream 5', but that's not saying much.

The acting all round is pretty bad. Dan Stevens is hamming it up, Melissa Barrera is a blank slate, but the worst performance by a mile is from Kathryne Newtown. Newtown has been bad in everything I've seen her in ('Detective Pikachu', the 'Death Note' remake), but here she's impressively awful, she can't even scream convincingly. The little girl is good for a child actress, but her dialogue is embarrassing lazy and stilted. She's the exact same kind of "toying with her victims" villain we've seen a million times before, now just in child form.

There are TWO 3-minute exposition scenes in this movie where a character just stops the film dead in its tracks, and explains everyone's backstory. It wouldn't be as unbearable if these characters weren't stock and unlikeable, but not one of them has an interesting backstory, so wasting this time trying to "flesh them out" ends up being a complete, cliched waste. Theres even a gag where the big "muscle" character screams like a little girl, as if we haven't seen that joke a million times before...

There were no engaging twists or revelations, and the characters were impossibly stupid. Unlike 'Ready or Not', where the lead character makes smart decisions, and the villains only make idiotic decisions because that's core to their character, the group in 'Abigail' are "professionals" who only make moronic decisions to further the contrived plot.

One aspect that surprised me was how many loud and amateur jump-scares there were. None of them were effective, and the editing is akin to something you'd expect from a horror short on YouTube. The sound design is particularly egregious and insistent, and all but one of the needle drops are total cringe. There's no moments of tension or thrill. I doubt even a 12 year old would find any of this scary.

It even uses the same exploding-bodies trick from 'Ready or Not', but in a much dumber and unsatisfying way. It even ends in the same way, with one character saying pretty much the exact same thing as Samara Weaving in 'Ready or Not'. It's just them playing the hits from their one good movie. There's not an original bone in this movie, despite it clearly insisting that it's some fresh, slick new take on vampires.

I've seen a lot of stuff these two directors have done, including their sections in 'Southbound' and 'V/H/S', and it's clear that Gillet and Bettinelli-Olpin only have one good movie in them, and that's mostly due to the fact that the premise in 'Ready or Not' is really hard to screw up. I don't ask for much, I've seen tonnes of tiny budget, straight-to-streaming comedy horrors that are far more inventive, funny and transgressive than this forgettable chore.

Plot

After a group of criminals kidnap the ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, they retreat to an isolated mansion, unaware that they're locked inside with no normal little girl.

Cast

Alisha Weir knocks it out of the park with her performance, Melissa Barrera is solid, Kevin Durand is excellent as always and Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton and Giancarlo Esposito are er also there.

Verdict

I don't go the cinema often, usually this is because of limited time, inevitable disappointment and the ridiculous expense involved. The missus wanted to see this so I made an exception, I was right about the expense as it came to just over £50 which is lunacy for a 90 minute presentation and don't even get me started on how many adverts I had to endure (And I don't mean trailers).

But did I at least least enjoy the film? Well, yeah I really did. Alas this is certainly a movie where a person would be better off not watching the trailer, knowing the big twist straight out of the gate certainly damaged the film but it was so good and threw so many additional curveballs it just didn't matter.

A solid cast (I'm a Durand fanboy) including a child actress who absolutely nailed her role to unexpected levels, a decent budget, great setting, decent cinematography and dare I say some levels of originality Abigail was an unexpectedly good film and everything I wanted M3gan (2022) to be.

See I've slated Hollywood horror for years claiming they've lost their way but movies like this demonstrate all hope is not lost.

Gory, over the top yet fairly smart and fantastically executed Abigail is a solid horror film.

Rants

Poor Barrera, glad to see she's having a decent career post her ridiculous firing from the Scream series. Who'd have thought that being against genocide is a bad thing and a person could get fired over having that stance? Plenty in support of it are doing just fine. What a time to be alive!

The Good

Barrera, Durand and Weir Sufficiently gory Very well constructed Barrels of fun Plenty of twists to keep you entertained

The Bad

I feel the finale could have been handled a smidge better Newton didn't seem on form.

A mixed group of criminals kidnap Abigail, a young ballerina, and daughter of a powerful business mogul. The gang think they're coming into millions, but Abigail has a shocking surprise waiting for them.

One of the horror highlights of 2024 so far, it's done well at The Box Office, and it's easy to understand why, it's definitely a crowd pleaser.

A seemingly straightforward thriller very rapidly turns into a genre crossing horror movie. Abigail is a real mix of styles, it's goofy, it's funny, it's well paced, and of course there are plenty of jump scares.

Very nicely made, well shot, with some good music, which surprisingly doesn't become too intrusive.

You really can't fault any of the performances, credit very much to that young Alisha Weir, excellent as the title character. Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens are both good, but Weir steals the show.

A cheeky And then there were none reference too.

7/10.

Enjoyable a day later, but on release as I was watching the movie, I kept expecting more. Some kind of twist and even a possible movie connecting during the ending. But alas, the movie is exactly what you see in the trailer. As a matter of fact, it's mostly what you see in the trailer. No surprises, no extra moments (except a very small surprise towards the end), just what you see is what you get.

I definitely did run a bit longer, I think they cut out that opening segmented and just start right away. It's Worth a watch if you have a season pass of some sort, but I wouldn't go out of my way compared to some others.