Abigail, the first horror film since The Sound of Silence director Matt Bettinelli Olpin and Tyler Gillett directed Scream, offers gory satisfaction with a simple premise. In short, a petite, tutu-wearing vampire torments the rabble of criminals in the Scooby Doo mansion. This is the bloodiest episode of a ballet since Darren Aronofsky pitted Natalie Portman against Mila Kunis. Neither was able to join Alisha Weir on stage to perform a trio dance.
The rising Irish star, who recently starred in Wicked Little Letters but is best known for the Netflix musical Matilda, plays a 12-year-old girl who is the daughter of Kristof Lazar, a feared crime boss in the darkest underworld. Abigail has just returned home from a late-night ballet rehearsal when she is kidnapped by six con artists and taken to a secluded, isolated estate. She turns up at the behest of Lambert, played by Giancarlo Esposito, a dodgy suit who orchestrates the heist. The asking price for her exquisite head is a whopping $50 million. All Lambert’s irregulars need to do is keep Abigail safe twenty-four hours a day. She was twelve years old. It couldn’t have been simpler.
The composition of the group is as one might imagine, that is to say, their personalities only fit the film. There are loafers, muscle men, flippant blondes and snake charmers. It’s neither sophisticated nor progressive, but it works and is bolstered by intelligent casting. Take Diz; with her breakthroughs in The Thing and Ant-Man, Kathryn Newton elevated her status tenfold. As for the snake charmers, they’re no better than Melissa Barrera, who reunites with her Scream director and delivers the same subversive power. Dan Stevens plays an erratic ex-cop, while Kevin Duran, Will Cartwright and the late Angus Crowder (who the film is dedicated to) round out the team.
For personal protection, each offender is not named, but rather named after a member of the “rat pack”, a most effective reverse aliasing device. The rat pack was ripe for trapping. Here’s the thing: young Abigail is actually a centuries-old vampire and part-time killer. Will’s love of ballet makes sense – throughout the film, Will wears Anna Pavola and a dazzling pair of stilettos – but so does her thirst for blood and her murderous streak. She could have eliminated them in seconds, but she admits “I like to play with food.”
Will excels here, once again displaying a screen presence beyond her years. She effortlessly flirts between naive teenager and nightmare, and her transformation at the manor is almost imperceptible …… until it’s too late. Frankly, Betinelli Olpin and Gillette inject a surprising amount of artificial blood into her during Will’s romp, even though they only use a fraction of what’s in the film. Everyone has a Carrie moment here. Of course, the early decapitations set a high benchmark for sickening filth, which gradually reaches a bloody climax as the end credits roll. Just when you think you’ve got the measure of the thing, you realise you’ve been Abigail’s plaything all along too.
It’s all very gothic too. The labyrinthine mansion scenes are perfect for creating a creepy, terrifying atmosphere, and the blurring of Brian Taylor’s score with the central theme of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake can’t help but create a touch of the fantastical. Aspects of the legend are given an amusing triviality, incorporating humour into the horror. Abigail may owe her origins to Lambert – see the nod? – Hillier’s Universal Monsters film Dracula’s Daughter, but each has its own distinctive character.
