Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gyllett, the tandem to which we owe Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023), are back with Abigail, a dripping cross between the gangster film and the vampire film imagined by Stephen Shields and his accomplice Guy Busick. Or, as the filmmakers suggest, a Ready or Not (2019), their first feature film, on steroids coupled with a very free adaptation of Dracula’s Daughter (1936), by Lambert Hillyer.
The master of this game of massacre is also called Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito). The latter has just hired six criminals to kidnap Abigail (Alisha Weir), graceful 12-year-old ballerina and daughter of a dangerous underworld boss (Matthew Goode), and hold her captive in a gothic mansion for 24 hours to obtain a ransom of 50 million dollars.
Now, the little dancer, who shows a penchant for Swan Lakeby Tchaikovsky, associated with vampire films since Dracula (1931), by Tod Browning, is a ferocious creature that drinks blood and likes to play with its food. With her fangs reminiscent of those of the ballerina of Cabin in the Woods (2011) and her dance moves borrowed from the M3GAN doll and Wednesday Adams, Abigail turns out to be a vampire as adorable as young Claudia fromInterview with the Vampire (1994), by Neil Jordan.
Snack time will soon come for Joey (Melissa Barrera), Frank (Dan Stevens, the most hilarious of the lot), Sammy (Kathryn Newton), Rickles (William Catlett), Peter (Kevin Durand, who plays with the accent Quebecois) and Dean (the late Angus Cloud, to whom the film is dedicated) whom Abigail will enjoy persecuting and manipulating. To the delight of the spectators, who will treat themselves to several pints of good blood if they fail to get their teeth into a horror drama that will have them nailed to their seats.
In fact, although the hemoglobin flows freely in this bloody variant ofThere were ten of themby Agatha Christie, Abigail is in no way scary. Overwhelmed with references to the classics of the genre, the film does not reinvent the wheel. If they take advantage of the dark, decaying mansion rather well and sign some acrobatic and muscular fight scenes, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gyllett unnecessarily stretch the sauce of a rather summary and predictable story. In the absence of a memorable vampire ball, they orchestrate a ball of egos where the most cunning and the least clever entertain the gallery with alliances and betrayals, like the participants of a famous reality TV show.
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horror drama
Abigail (VOA and VF)
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gyllett
Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Alisha Weir
1:49 a.m.