Abigail

Ready or Not meets Jaroslav Soukup's The Vampire Wedding and, purely subjectively, The Usual Suspects (if Abigail profiles everyone from the elevator cage like Kobayashi once did at the pool table, then Giancarlo Esposito is Agent Baer and Matthew Goode is Keyser Söze)! It has issues with pacing and creativity, and the interesting cast didn't really push themselves beyond wiping gallons of fake blood off their skin (Kevin Durand's dullard doesn't work, and surprisingly neither does Dan Stevens with sharper teeth), but as a visually appealing Dracula story with Pink-Red Swan vibes, it doesn't quite drain your blood despite the slightly overlong runtime. "I fucking hate ballet!" (15/05/2024)

If you watch the trailer of Abigail before the screening, you'll be revealed on one major plot twist, but the film still has a few more surprising aces up their sleeve, especially in the final third. The central motif of an ambiguous cat-and-mouse game bears a strong resemblance to previous pieces by the creative duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, but this time the bloody murder mystery is given a supernatural twist. I haven't seen Ready or Not, but I really enjoyed the last two Scream films, especially for breaking the boundaries of the genre, flirting with them and playing with audience expectations. Abigail rides a similar wave, featuring more than one good allusion to the genre or pop culture, yet the film as a whole failed to engage and entertain me as much as the fifth and sixth Scream did. The big stumbling block for me was some of the largely unlikeable characters and their theatrical badass acting. Alisha Weir, on the other hand, was bloody charming and I'm curious to see what direction her career will take. (02/05/2024)

As decent popcorn cinema entertainment, Abigail is adequate, but as anything above that, not so much. The directing duo have already shown with Scream VI and Ready or Not that they are no strangers to the craft and can make a fine thriller with no problem, but they've also shown that they're not ready for anything better, more shocking, and the same goes for Abigail. This film especially benefits from its originality (a bunch of bad guys locked in a house with a vampire hunting them down one by one - that something we haven’t seen before ) and also from a nice cast, Kevin Durand, Kathryn Newton and Angus Cloud are all familiar faces and definitely good. The film is not lacking in entertainment, the humour also works at times and I actually had a pretty good time in the cinema. But all that until the "finale", where the directors literally pulled their brains out and for some reason felt the need to end the film with a total shitfest where nothing made sense anymore, pulling the "vampire" rules out as they pleased (once someone goes in for the kill, the second time they don't, once someone gets "infected", the second time they don't...). Objectively, it's pure average marred a bit by a really bad ending that makes you feel they had no idea how to wrap up the film and just ran out of steam. Too bad. (19/04/2024)

It's exactly what you imagine it will be. I must add, however, that the running time is quite unwarranted with such a simple plot, revealed by the trailer and synopsis. In fact, there are zero surprises here, and many elements look very familiar in the filmography of these filmmakers. I have nothing against filmmakers repeating schemes and ideas that have worked for them before, but I'm a little worried whether Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett have run out of steam as writers. Either way, Kevin Durand should be cast more often and in bigger productions! (26/05/2024)

I usually enjoy Dracula themes, but this one really missed the mark for me. Radio Silence basically rehashed their excellent Ready or Not, but this formula doesn't work as well with more annoying characters and a vampire twist. Abigail feels like a stale mess, and not even the excellent Dan Stevens could save it. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett will need to seriously impress with their next project to make up for this disappointment. (14/07/2024)