Written by Stephen Shields And Guy Busick
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin And Tyler Gillett
Abigail: "Joey?"
Joey: "Yeah?"
Abigail: "I'm sorry about what's gonna happen to you."
There was a time when a movie featuring vampires would be something of a hit but it seems like this particular subset of horror films have dwindled in popularity. A shame because while this movie hasn't been impervious to that unfortunate trend, it's a bloody good one to watch.
At first, this movie gave the impression of being a heist/kidnapping fare with young ballerina Abigail (Alisha Weir) being snatched by a group led by thr mysterious Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito). Then the trailers revealed too much too soon about the actual premise of the movie. Almost to the spoiling the good stuff so to speak.
The group of kidnappers are a disparate bunch with characters such as Rickles (Will Catlett) and Dean (Angus Cloud) being the least developed of the lot. They're also unsurprisingly the first two to be killed off when it dawned on the group that their hostage was more than an ordinary girl.
For starters, there was the belief of Abigail being the daughter of noted gangster Kristof Lazaar (Matthew Goode) but the truth was a lot worse than that. Instead, Abigail turned out to be a vampire and a rather old, clever and dangerous one at that.
As for the main focus of the group, there was ex-marine medic/addict Joey (Abigail), disgraced NY Detective Frank (Dan Stevens), hired goon Peter (Kevin Durand) and rich girl hacker, Sammy (Kathryn Newton). All of them had to work together in order to survive Abigail's onslaught in the trap of a manor they were in while also combating each other.
Notably the antagonism between Joey and Frank certainly anchored the movie, especially over their stances on Abigail. Joey had a maternal sense to protect the girl prior to the vampire reveal while Frank was determined to escape, be rich and kill Abigail and Joey in one go. He had no problem reneging on deals and betraying whoever he had to get what he wanted.
In fact as the we got into the final act of the movie, Frank emerged more as a villain than Abigail herself. As for Joey, let's just say that Melissa Barrera played the part fairly similar to Sam Carpenter and that wasn't entirely a bad thing. By the end of the movie, only one of the kidnappers survived the night and there was definitely room for more to be explored.
- Sunlight and stakes work against vampires and sires can control the vampires they've made as Abigail did with Sammy and Frank thought he was doing with Joey.
- This was Angus Cloud's (Dean) final role before his death and there's a dedication to him at the end of the movie.
- Abigail's father was implied to be Dracula but it's never outright stated if he was. The movie itself is a loose remake of Dracula's Daughter.
- The kidnappers are all named after Rat Pack members. That was a nice touch to the movie.
- Standout music: Tchaikovsky: I. Scene – Swan Theme (Swan Lake Suite) OP.20a, Anyhow I Love You by Guy Clark and Blood And Tears by Danzig.
- Chronology: The movie takes place during the course of a night.
I do really feel bad for Abigail because as a movie, while it's not a horror classic, there's so much to enjoy here. A great lead performance by Alisha Weir as the titular character, decent bouts of horror and goes and an engaging bunch of other characters. This is a movie that likely will get a cult following over time. It's just a shame it's being slept on right now.
Rating: 8 out of 10
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