Promised an insane amount of cash by Lambert, the gang gap up within the monumental property the place they’re holding Abigail hostage, and look ahead to intruders. However precisely who has captured who will not be because it appears.
Like Prepared or Not, Abigail is about virtually totally in a single location and what a location that’s! A labyrinthine multi-story property filled with hidden doorways, gloomy basements and so many rooms and corridors it’s straightforward to get misplaced, it’s an important arrange. The gang are caught there for the evening. However what they’re caught with precisely doesn’t develop into clear till the beginning of the second act.
The ace up Abigail’s sleeve is Abigail. Performed by Alisha Weir, who starred within the movie adaptation of Matilda: The Musical, she’s an absolute revelation. Abigail is a ballerina, she’s the lovely daughter of a really wealthy man, and she or he’s additionally a vampire. Sure, Abigail leans arduous into style and it’s the perfect vampire film we’ve seen in ages. Adopting some bits of vampire lore, whereas rejecting others, Abigail retains the viewers, and the human characters, guessing, permitting for some fantastic, scary and generally completely disgusting set items. Kathryn Newton specifically is put by way of the ringer (if Prepared or Not is something to go by Radio Silence do wish to gunge up their feminine characters), although she additionally will get a standout scene involving a dance which goes to develop into the subsequent TikTok development sitting alongside these from M3GAN and Wednesday.
Making Abigail a ballerina was a genius transfer, permitting Weir to discover her vampire physicality in methods which are stunning and creepy on the identical time. Whereas the movie wears its references on its sleeve – and there are a number of – it stays recent all through.
Stevens specifically seems to be like he’s having an absolute blast – with this, Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and Cuckoo on its manner, he’s having a high yr. Scream and Scream VI star Barrera makes a recreation horror heroine too, although the film might do with out a number of the ethical and pseudo-emotional beats that Joey, significantly, juggles. We admire this can be a style mashup however parenting melodrama doesn’t have to be within the combine. Nonetheless that’s a tiny niggle for an in any other case glorious movie.
Radio Silence have confirmed themselves as probably the most thrilling, and crucially, enjoyable, voices within the horror style and Abigail takes this to the subsequent stage. It’s creepy and gross however not too disturbing for horror-skeptics whereas it ought to make gorehounds’ hearts sing.