Abigail (2024)

 

 

Abigail is a dark comedy horror film that gives a couple of nice different takes on one of horrors oldest legends.  The film concerns a group of criminals hired to kidnap a young girl who is the daughter of a gang leader.  Guinness Manor in Dublin Ireland is the mansion that is used for the house in the film.  It is so sufficiently creepy that you could take this house and use it in any old Hammer Horror film and it would fit perfectly.  I guess that dark cherry wood look is in these days for horror movies because everything needs more color.  Why do horror films all have to look washed out and different shades of dark drab colors?  Gray, brown, black, dark red, all of these seem to be the “it” colors today and I don’t like it.

 

Abigail is directed by the team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett who have directed Ready or Not, V/H/S, and 2022s Scream together in the past.  They have a good amount of experience in creating horror movies while being horror fans themselves and it shows.  Every film they direct together improves with each offering.  Yes, V/H/S and Devil’s Due were mediocre at best but they were their first steps into feature films.  Since then, their films have improved more and more.  Starring is Melissa Barrera (Scream and In the Heights) as Joey a recovering addict who is also a medic, Alisha Weir (Matilda The Musical and Wicked Little Letters) as Abigail, the target of the kidnapping who is a 12 year old girl and is more than she seems, Dan Stevens (Godzilla X Kong and The Guest) as Frank a corrupt former police detective, Kathryn Newton (Lisa Frankenstein and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania) as Sammy a rich girl who is good at computer hacking, Kevin Durand (Real Steel and X Men Origins Wolverine) as Peter a former mob enforcer who struggles with his conscious, and Angus Cloud (Your Lucky Day and Euphoria) as Dean a psychopathic getaway driver. 

 

 

Sadly, Cloud, who was one of the actors who impressed me the most here, passed away before the film was released.  All the actors in Abigail do a nice job with their respective characters.  As I said before Abigail is very well done and it remembers how to bring a little fun back to horror because I did have fun watching this one.  Kudos for even including a few twists I didn’t see coming.  The special effects are what you would expect; lots of blood!  I’ll give Abigail three and a half tutus out of five.