Teeth & Tissue
‘Scream’ rebooters Matt Bettinelli & Tyler Gillett wrap themselves in the hard ‘R’ and the results are glorious.
Abigail
Directors: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett • Writers: Stephen Shields, Guy Busick
Starring: Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Alisha Weir, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, Giancarlo Esposito
USA • 1hr 49mins
Opens Hong Kong April 18 • III
Grade: B+
Take the foundation of Dracula’s Daughter (a chestnut from the 1930s) and sprinkle it with a little The Bad Seed, a healthy dose of slasher convention, a touch of Agatha Christie and some genuine wit free of a slavish devotion to clever self-consciousness and you’ll get something that looks a lot like Abigail. Directing partners Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (AKA Radio Silence), who are best known for their V/H/S anthology franchise and the now-dodgy AF Scream reboot (though none of the dodginess is their doing), recycle some of the gothic mansion cat-and-mouse gore of their underrated Ready or Not for a splatter-mad, viscera-drenched vampire comedy that earns its Cat III rating. And we’re thankful for it. Bettinelli-Olpin, Gillett and Abigail don’t pull their bloody punches the way Smile, M3GAN (in its theatrical release) and this week’s Imaginary do, so all y’all horror hounds are in for a treat. On top of that, this is genuinely entertaining for anyone with the, errr, guts for the guts, thanks in large part to one of the strongest casts to grace a slasher in years. And that includes the Screams.
And then there were none
Abigail’s basic story is simple: A motley crew (they’re always motley) of strangers is brought together by shady criminal mastermind Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito, effortlessly menacing as usual) to kidnap young prima ballerina Abigail (Alisha Weir) and wring a US$50 million ransom out of her über-rich father. After a clockwork heist, the gang and their loot in a tutu retreat to an out-of-the-way estate for the night. Lambert will contact dad, and come back within 24 hours with their spoils. À la Reservoir Dogs, they get code names: Joey (fast-emerging scream queen Melissa Barrera, In the Heights, Scream) is a junkie who abandoned her son; Frank (Dan Stevens, officially every film’s MVP, always) is a dirty cop; Sammy (Kathryn Newton, Freaky, Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) is a poor little rich girl with mad hacking skillz; Peter, the Platonic ideal of an idiotic lug (Kevin Durand, the Ratcatcher in The Strain, Fruitvale Station) is the muscle; Dean (the late Angus Cloud, Euphoria) is the wheelman; and Rickles (William Catlett, Lovecraft Country, sadly given the least to do) is a former Marine sharpshooter. It takes Peter a while to figure out the reference, poor brute. Before long the crew finds itself trapped inside the house with Abigail preening and pirouetting around and showing off her true vampire nature. Cue the bloodletting as these fools try and fight a supernatural creature they know nothing about.
Abigail could very easily come off as derivative given the broad swath of influences it taps into but it’s aware of its own silliness and thankfully never tips into obnoxious. Irish television writer Stephen Shields and Radio Silence regular Guy Busick (TV series Castle Rock) get creative with narrative twists and kills – many are minor surprises – but the 100% game cast land the jokes, particularly Durand and Stevens as the dumb-as-a-bag-of-rocks Peter and Frank, whose superiority complex manifests as hilariously exasperated. You’ll never look at onions the same way again. Barrera and Weir (an actual good child actor) do the heavy emotional lifting for Abigail’s unobtrusive drama, because buried under the gags and gore is low-key story about parents, children, surrogates for each and stepping in when one needs the other. You can take that for what it is, or just skip over it in your mind and sit tight for the next splash of squishy goopy entrails.
Admittedly, though its pacing is mostly on target, Abigail takes a little while to get going and the big boss fight at the end is stretched to its breaking point. A tiny bit of trimming to find the tighter 95- or 100-minute version that’s lurking and Abigail could have risen to almost classic levels. That said, it’s a crowd-pleaser that will go down best when served in a full theatre. Nothing goes better with exploding heads than strangers behind you letting loose a “Daaaaamn!” when the action demands it. — DEK