Alisha Weir Abigail.
Photo: Bernard Walsh/Universal Pictures
That’s tough when a movie’s premise is also its biggest and best reveal.new horror movie Abigail The film follows a group of kidnappers who capture a rich man’s daughter after a ballet rehearsal and hide her in a safe house. There they discover that the girl (played by Alisha Weir) is a vampire and is actually trapped there. She is who she is, not the other way around. Just to be clear, this is all in the trailer. That’s the reason this movie exists. Meet Little Ballerina Vampire Butcher and her hapless kidnappers! Sales are not bad either. I was intrigued by this movie when I first saw the trailer and remained interested even after I was forced to watch it about 398 more times.
Still, I couldn’t help but wonder why. Abigail If we didn’t know this was a vampire story and were just drawn along with the rest of the cast into the creepy goings-on that take place in this weirdly huge mansion in the middle, what if we had a blank slate? If I had entered the program, I might have performed this piece. Nowhere. We don’t learn that the poor, wailing Abigail is actually an undead (and acrobatic) beast with fangs until about 40 minutes into the film. In this scene, the girl casually unties herself, screams and bares her fangs at her captives who are struck by lightning. Weir, a young Irish actress (who has made a big impression in recent films) matilda Up until that point, Abigail had taken a convincingly helpless pose, but when Abigail lets go, the unrealistic pirouette savagery of her loose limbs transforms the picture into a bloody new one. Rotate in the direction. This was a great reveal and could have been a nice surprise if modern movie marketing allowed it. What would happen if we went into these films, even big IP-driven studio films, without knowing anything about them?
But I’m not going to discuss it Abigail If I can avoid spoilers, it will be some kind of hidden masterpiece. To do that, the characters would have needed more care and consideration. Instead, we watch this somewhat clueless group of anonymous kidnappers begin an unconvincing argument before we learn Abigail’s true nature. They are not allowed to reveal their true identities and are referred to only by the name of the Rat Pack, but one of them, street smart Joey (Melissa Barrera), is a former addict and a member of the Rat Pack. He is very good at understanding characters and quickly deduces the background of each character. There’s Frank (Dan Stevens), a former detective who falls into corruption. Sammy (Kathryn Newton), a rich hacker looking for a thrill. Rickles (Will Catlett), a former Marine. Peter (Kevin Durand) is a muscular ex-yakuza thug who looks like a Brundlefly version of Elon Musk and an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger. and Dean (Angus Cloud), an intellectually disabled and sociopathic getaway driver.
Barrera’s Joey aside, these are mostly caricatures rather than people, as they’re there to be fooled. So the anticipation of impending vampire shenanigans may be a boon in this regard. It keeps us from thinking too much about this ridiculous kidnapping plot or caring too much about these people. One exception is Cloud’s Dean: Young Man. euphoria The actor died suddenly in July last year, shortly after the show ended. AbigailAnd his quirky energy is so charming at times that you miss it when he’s not on screen. The sense of loss deepens when we learn that the actor is no longer with us.
eventually, Abigail It settles into a fairly predictable rhythm of people running around a dark mansion getting killed one by one, but it occasionally shows a perverse sense of playfulness. Abigail is a ballerina, after all, and enjoys dancing as much as she enjoys killing. When she begins to control one character’s mind (vampires can do that), she first makes the others dance. This sounds as weird as it feels on screen, in a good way. Unfortunately, the problem with brief moments of inspiration like this is that you wonder why you aren’t getting more inspiration.
in some cases, Abigail It seems like they are more interested in the ratings than the characters and story. This film is proudly rated R, not because of the intensity or the truly disturbing content, but because every other line of dialogue seems like “Fuck!” And it’s full of people exploding in (admittedly hilarious) bloody supernovas. It’s a cheesy thrill movie, but in most ways it’s satisfying. There are decapitated heads, slashed faces, torn throats, blood vomit, and pools filled with feces and corpses. The enhanced gore increases the schlock value of the film, but not the suspense value. And it certainly doesn’t have that effect. So maybe I should undo it all: Abigail It probably only works if you know that’s right What’s in it?
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