If you happen to look up the movie Abigail, you don’t even have to look at the official synopsis to get an immediate idea that there is something up with the titular girl. In fact, you’re far more likely to see an image of the young ballerina with fangs on full display before you get a chance to read what the movie is about. Nonetheless, when I sat down to watch it, I was still quite surprised by everything that happened until its finale. Surprises or no, is it worth a watch?

Pros

Impressive special effects and an excessive amount of blood
Some entertaining comedic lines of dialogue
Dan Stevens’ charisma helps carry the film
Good acting from most of the cast

Cons

Rather predictable plot
The second half, despite all the action, drags a little
For every smart decision the characters make, a dumb decision follows
Suspension of disbelief becomes more and more necessary as the movie goes on

Plot & Thoughts

A team of specialists breaks into a very large mansion and kidnaps a young girl who just got home from ballet practice. The girl’s name is Abigail (Alisha Weir), and she puts up a good fight until they knock her out with a sedative. The team brings her to another mansion in a secluded region where they’re expected to stay for the night and keep watch to earn their $50,000,000 reward. It doesn’t take long, however, for some of them to be killed by something they didn’t expect, and they have to band together to survive the night.

Since the marketing of the movie is very upfront about what Abigail is, it’s a little odd that the movie takes its time revealing the fact that she’s the monster the kidnappers need to worry about. Nonetheless, it is where the movie is most suspenseful. Once it’s revealed that Abigail is a bloodthirsty monster capable of killing them all with ease, the movie becomes more focused on action and comedy to balance things out. By the third act, the horror returns in the form of excessive blood effects that made me chuckle with glee. The final scene alone used a comedic amount of blood to remind me of Evil Dead 2.

I’m not trying to overly simplify Abigail as a movie in this synopsis, as there’s definitely more to this movie than meets the eye. It does a decent job of establishing the characters in the opening minutes before it eventually does a clumsy backstory dump on all of them. It’s shown through their actions during the job what each kidnapper’s role is in the group, and that they haven’t worked together before. We could have gotten the backstories of each of them through different scenes of dialogue throughout the film to further expand on them. Instead, the main female character, Joey (Melissa Barrera), just psychoanalyzes all of them with her superpower in one scene.

Once established, however, they all stand out from each other, and most of the cast does a good job of playing their roles. Dan Stevens as Frank is the main standout as he quickly establishes himself as the leader of the group and a man who likes to use the word “fuck” as much as Tony Montana from Scarface. He commands every scene with a looming presence and bubbling anger that makes him seem like he might just snap and kill everyone in the room at any moment. A lot of the humor in this movie comes from how he interacts with the rest of the cast, and it works. The rest of the group does a good job of playing off of him, though I was not overly impressed by Barrera’s performance.

Where Abigail mainly falters is in its second half. Despite the action and comedy increasing as the movie goes on, it definitely feels like Abigail could have been trimmed down. It’s under two hours, but the pacing is still off enough that it feels longer than it is. It also takes a fair amount of suspension of disbelief for a lot of things that happen in this movie. Yes, it’s a movie in which a group of adults are hunted down and killed by a monstrous little girl, but when someone gets stabbed in the knee with a thick wooden stake, I don’t expect them to be able to walk afterward. There are also multiple instances in which characters make an intelligent decision and then follow it up with a dumb one for reasons that cannot be explained in any way other than “so the movie can happen.” Still, these are not huge flaws that drag down the whole experience, as most of the horror, action, and comedy are pretty entertaining to make up for it.

TL;DR

Abigail does not really break new ground, however, it still has plenty going for it in terms of being an entertaining horror comedy. The liberal use of the word “fuck” in the script, especially from Dan Stevens, adds to the personality of the film. The action is shot well to keep you engaged with what is going on, even if the movie starts to overstay its welcome. The absurdly excessive blood effects by the end get laughable, right down to the finale. I’d certainly suggest this movie over a certain other gory horror-comedy involving vampires (cough, cough Renfield!). Give it a try if you’re intrigued.

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