Abigail (2024)
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
A group of criminals kidnap a teenage ballet dancer, the daughter of a notorious gang leader, in order to obtain a ransom of $50 million, but over time, they discover that she is not just an ordinary girl. After the kidnappers begin to diminish, one by one, they discover, to their increasing horror, that they are locked inside with no normal little girl.
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4 films that influenced Abigail
What critics say influenced Abigail
Abigail is allegedly a loose reworking of the 1936 Universal Studios film Dracula’s Daughter, but it’s difficult to see how, beyond a musical nod to the original 1931 Dracula and the fact that Abigail is, well, a vampiric daughter.
It's a heavy hint that the theme music, accompanied by a solo ballet turn, is that snatch of Swan Lake heard at the beginning of Dracula in 1931, but the first act then plays like a shadowy riff on Reservoir Dogs.
What the trailers don’t reveal is the twist ending, that Abigail is not just any vampire-ballerina, but Dracula’s daughter. Here, Dracula is played by British actor Matthew Goode, and while the other characters refer to him by his underworld alias, “Lazar,” the film’s credits identify him simply as “Father.” The implication, however, is clear.
Since the immediate failure of their Dark Universe – which would have seen a shared cinematic universe with the likes of Tom Cruise’s Mummy, Johnny Depp’s Invisible Man, and Angelina Jolie as the Bride of Javier Bardem’s Frankenstein(‘s Monster) – Universal has wisely reverted to simply letting filmmakers create their own standalone takes on the studio’s gallery of classic monsters. More often than not, the results have been fairly solid, with Leigh Whannell’s 2020 version of The Invisible Man being a prime example of what a filmmaker’s vision can bring to a familiar concept (the writer-director is now currently working on a modern-day revamp of The Wolf Man).
Abigail expertly honors what came before while simultaneously flipping vampire subgenre tropes and audience expectations on their heads. In doing so, Abigail effectively cements itself as the most inventive Universal Monsters movie since 2020's The Invisible Man.
Leaping from vulnerable to vicious with alarming ease, Weir delivers a performance that ranks with the likes of Linda Blair in The Exorcist, Isabelle Fuhrman in Orphan, and Patty McCormack in The Bad Seed.
My guess is this film will also have a ton of rewatch ability in the same way that Ready or Not (2019) does because it is just too much of a fun time to only watch once.
“Abigail,” Universal gets into the Radio Silence business, hoping that their brand of female-driven horror can pay big dividends at the box office (and birth a franchise?). With a script by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, who co-wrote “Ready or Not,” Radio Silence have delivered what is essentially a spiritual sequel to their breakout hit, this time with vampires rather than superstitious old-money sadists, and starring “Scream” queen Melissa Barrera.
Abigail, the latest from directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, feels like a spiritual sibling to their 2019 hit Ready or Not. Both are set almost entirely within a sprawling, warm-toned mansion and both deliver copious blood splatter to a delightfully satisfying degree. But Abigail is an inverse of Ready or Not; instead of one heroine targeted and preyed upon by a group of morally dubious enemies, it’s one vicious threat picking off morally dubious kidnappers one by one, slasher style.
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, from a screenplay cowritten by their Ready or Not and Scream 2022 collaborator Guy Busick, it’s a genre exercise with modest aspirations and enthusiastic execution.
Story-wise, Abigail has many similarities with Ready or Not, which are easy to understand when we realize Guy Busick co-wrote both scripts. The two movies deal with a group of people pitted against a resourceful killer inside a fabulous mansion, leading to creative deaths and a non-ending cat-and-mouse game. Abigail, however, inverts Ready or Not logic by turning the killer into an antagonist instead of the final girl.
Those filmmakers are Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (collectively known as Radio Silence, having taken over the Scream franchise for a while following their success), responsible for the mindbending wedding day survival thriller Ready or Not, which pitted its bride against wealthy in-laws, teasing the possibility of a curse.