Last 12 months’s good-looking gothic horror The Final Voyage of the Demeter and bombastic Nic Cage comedy Renfield allowed Common the chance to current identified IP as one thing contemporary, at the very least on the floor, tales involving Dracula however informed in methods we hadn’t seen earlier than. They represented a nifty advertising technique for a again catalogue of traditional monster motion pictures however each labored higher as loglines than completed movies – Dracula on a ship, Dracula as a foul boss – and audiences proved as uninterested as critics, the stench of previous property distracting from the promise of one thing new.
Because the studio preps a brand new tackle The Wolf Man with subsequent 12 months’s Christopher Abbott-led Wolfman and Robert Eggers’ remake of the Dracula-inspired Nosferatu, right here comes Abigail, a poppy reimagining of the little-remembered 1936 horror Dracula’s Daughter. Within the up to date take, she’s a ballerina (Matilda’s Alisha Weir) who will get kidnapped by a bunch of unaware criminals, employed to maintain her locked in a grand previous home for twenty-four hours whereas ransom cash is obtained. However early on, recovering addict and single mom Joey (Melissa Barrera) figures out that one thing is up and begins to understand that the scared little lady of their care won’t be so scared in any case.
Abigail comes from Radio Silence, the staff who broke out with 2019’s smug but profitable Prepared or Not, a gimmicky thriller a few new bride pressured to play a lethal recreation of disguise and search that began with actual fizz earlier than turning flat. There’s a equally precipitous dip right here, administrators Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett once more crafting a enjoyable conceit with returning author Man Busick (right here writing alongside Stephen Shields), however with out the follow-through. It has the identical arch comedy-horror tone, as gory as it’s goofy, nevertheless it’s lacking the contact of an actual comedy author (making it the second movie this 12 months after Godzilla x Kong the place Dan Stevens has to play comedian help with out the help of his screenwriter). Set-ups for jokes are left as simply that and our anticipate any type of payoff begins to reflect the plot at massive, our anticipate a premise to develop into an actual film proving equally limitless.
What’s irritating is that, like Prepared or Not, it’s directed with extra aptitude and menace than nearly all of studio horror launched presently – grand and modern and, glory of glories, well-lit (!). It’s additionally set within the form of sinister distant mansion that recollects an Agatha Christie whodunnit, one thing the movie references with a duplicate of And Then There Had been None, cluing us into one other supply of inspiration. However as a thriller, the movie is a cop-out, guiding us to an enormous reveal that by no means actually arrives (we’re left with a cascade of “so whats”) and as an alternative, we’re provided the distraction of gore, as if one other exploding physique would possibly assist us to neglect that we’re on an extended highway to nowhere (the runtime is a bloated 109 minutes).
Barrera, who additionally starred in the identical staff’s two latest Scream movies, is an appealingly earthy heroine, even when she’s cursed with illogical decision-making and, by the tip, some discordantly sappy dialogue. Kathryn Newton, who just lately suffered by Lisa Frankenstein, is ever-likable (the tone of her sadly underseen 2020 comedy slasher Freaky is one thing the makers of Abigail ought to have regarded towards) and because the evil youngster at its centre, Irish actor Weir is a complete marvel, a convincingly ferocious and bitter little monster even when she’s slightly defanged throughout a messy and maudlin finale which dares to offer us essential parenting classes from a vampiric demon.
Because the plotting falls aside and the wheels really come off, there’s nothing that sturdy course and a work-hard forged can do to maintain Abigail from sucking. There’s quite a lot of blood right here however little or no else.
