Three at least interesting movies came out this past weekend: Sasquatch Sunset, The Ministry of Ungentlemenly Warfare, and Abigail. Normally, I’d try to get to at least two of those, but I had a busy weekend due to my paying job, and as such, I had time to see exactly one. I figured Sasquatch Sunset might be too weird for me in the end, and I likewise figured the Guy Ritchie movie would be around for at least another week. But Abigail looked to be an interesting idea at least, what with a vampire child attacking some kidnappers who took her from her home. And hey, it came from the directors of Ready or Not, so I’ll probably be at least entertained.
And then I learned Abigail is actually a remake…
Abigail (Alisha Weir) is a young girl, the daughter of a rich father, who after a ballet performance to an otherwise empty auditorium, finds herself kidnapped by a group of criminals. These crooks don’t really know each other, but they’re looking at a $50 million ransom, so they’re all in. Going by nicknames given to them by their contact Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito), they are irritable lead guy Frank (Dan Stevens), dumb muscle Peter (Kevin Durand), obnoxious driver Dean (Angus Cloud), hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton), weapons expert Rickels (Will Catlett), and medic Joey (Melissa Barrera). All they need to do is keep the little girl in the dark on who they really are, and they should have a few million dollars more in 24 hours when Abigail’s father pays up.
Or not. See, Abigail has a secret of her own, one revealed by all of the advertising: Abigail is a vampire. The manor house the criminals are using is a trap, and it won’t be long before they start dying. See, Abigail is not only a lot older than she looks, but she’s also a lot craftier. She’s been playing these guys like a fiddle, and if they’re going to get out of this alive, well…they may need to get away from a predator with a passion for dance when they don’t really know much of anything about what’s going on. Oh, but they’ll find out, and hopefully before Abigail’s crime lord father shows up. That guy, they’re really afraid of.
So, here’s the deal: this is Universal’s attempt to basically do a remake of 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter in much the same light as 2020’s The Invisible Man or maybe last year’s Renfield. I’ve seen Dracula’s Daughter, and it wasn’t all that impressive, a sequel to Bela Lugosi’s Dracula without Lugosi or Dracula himself. That version of the vampire daughter is an adult woman, but here, it’s a seeming child, a dangerous thing played very well by Weir, who seems to be always one step ahead of the kidnappers, and while the order the kidnappers die in is probably not much of a surprise, Abigail herself does, even pulling out a vampire power or two that hasn’t been seen in a movie that I can recall.
Now, to be fair, I didn’t find the movie all that funny despite the fact it was maybe supposed to be. As for the horror, knowing as I did Abigail’s secret, I found it pretty tense up until she revealed herself to her unknowing prey. The cast is mostly doing a good job with what they have, particularly Weir, Barrera, and particularly Stevens as a guy you may want to root for or against depending on the scene. I will say I was mildly unhappy to see that Abigail’s father was not Nicolas Cage’s character from the aforementioned Renfield, but while Abigail isn’t the best vampire movie I have seen in a while or anything along those lines, I will say I thought this was a fun time in a “turn your brain off and enjoy it” sort of way. Basically, I don’t regret my choice for a movie this past weekend.
Grade: B
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