The trailer for \u201cAbigail\u201d tells you almost everything you need to know about the movie, a wacky high-concept horror thriller about a group of kidnappers who bite off more than they can chew when they unwittingly abduct a child-sized vampire ballerina. The vamp, played with some relish by Alisha Weir, only really comes alive when she\u2019s leering at or stalking her prey. Genre fans will also spot some familiar faces among the movie\u2019s ensemble cast, all of whom do their best with this tic-y, schtick-y material. They curse (enough to seem like they\u2019re overcompensating for some things); they run (around each other, mostly); they get picked off one by one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You already know what you\u2019re in for if you\u2019ve come to \u201cAbigail\u201d to watch a body count caper featuring plummy character actor performances from That Guys like Kevin Durand and Dan Stevens. Most of their co-stars keep up in less attractive roles, including Melissa Barrera\u2019s thinly drawn anti-heroine team leader. There\u2019s also plenty of viscous-looking blood splatter and some modestly good-looking vampire makeup\u2014the fangs, in particular. Some action scenes are well-choreographed, but generally over-edited and shot just ahead of whatever\u2019s moving on-screen. The rest of this 90-minute genre exercise is unfailingly conventional, though that\u2019s also a big part of its ostensible appeal.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t really get or stay mad at \u201cAbigail\u201d for essentially delivering what its marketing promises. Sure, the movie\u2019s creators, led by co-helmers Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (better known as \u201cRadio Silence,\u201d directors of \u201cReady or Not\u201d and the 2022 \u201cScream\u201d reboot), could have delivered more, even though disenchanted viewers can\u2019t exactly claim false advertising. The setup is strictly by the numbers and the characters are all stock types.<\/p>\n
A team of bickering misfits kidnaps the title character (Weir). They follow her home with a comically oversized gizmo stuck to the bottom of her chauffeur\u2019s car. Then they bring the 12-year-old-looking girl to a secluded mansion, where they\u2019re reminded of their mission\u2019s stakes. Shady but well-dressed ring-leader Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) gives us and them the rundown: no real names, no cell phones, nothing personal\u2014it\u2019s 24 hours of baby-sitting a pre-teen who really likes to pli\u00e9 and step-toe her way through \u201cSwan Lake\u201d rehearsals. Simple is as simple does.<\/p>\n
We learn very little about everyone, thanks in no small part to a scene where Lambert nicknames the characters after members of the Rat Pack. Durand\u2019s character, a jolly-but-dim muscle-bro named Peter, tries to find the sense in being nicknamed after rats. Later, he gets that it\u2019s a disposable pop culture reference and promptly moves on.<\/p>\n
Peter\u2019s the most sympathetic character in \u201cAbigail,\u201d partly because he\u2019s constantly straining against the limits of what his character can know and do. He\u2019s joined by a call sheet of tropes, including Abigail\u2019s minder, the empathetic and observant Joey (Melissa Barrera); their irritating and wasted driver Dean (the late \u201cEuphoria\u201d star Angus Cloud); and the strong-silent ex-soldier Rickles (William Catlett). Eventually, the team has to worry not only about Abigail, but a few predictable liabilities, like their bratty and easily bored electronics hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton) and their foul-mouthed, inexplicably accented ex-cop backup leader Frank (Stevens).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The trailer for \u201cAbigail\u201d tells you almost everything you need to know about the movie, a wacky high-concept horror thriller about a group of kidnappers who bite off more than they can chew when they unwittingly abduct a child-sized vampire ballerina. The vamp, played with some relish by Alisha Weir, only really comes alive when …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[48,37],"class_list":["post-1187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-horror-movies","tag-horror","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/us.celebrity2000.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}