I love when a movie delivers on exactly what you need/want it to be. For Abigail, I was looking forward to a gory, fun vampire romp and I got exactly that. So, for my money, it’s one of the year’s best flicks so far.
For those unfamiliar, Abigail is directed by the team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, also known collectively as Radio Silence. In recent years, they have propelled themselves towards the top of my list of favorite horror directors. Ready or Not and their two Scream all are among my favorite horror flicks of the last five years. There are a few things you can expect when Radio Silence is at the helm. 1. It’s going to get brutal. We’re talking buckets upon buckets of fake blood. 2. It’ll feature a strong female protagonist to rival Ellen Ripley or Sarah Connor. And 3 and perhaps most importantly, you’re going to laugh a lot. They are perhaps the current masters of the horror-comedy. Abigail is no exception for any of those and is yet another wonderful achievement in the resume of directors I already love so much. I thoroughly enjoyed my entire viewing experience. It was tense. It was creepy. It made me laugh out loud. It was absolutely everything I hoped it’d be. Radio Silence truly are masters at their craft.
I’ve got to give a shoutout to the amazing cast of this as well. I think I need to go back and watch Netflix’s Matilda because this movie absolutely has me sold on Alisha Weir. She does such a good job switching between the cute, innocent kidnapping victim and the brutal, stern, sarcastic vampire killing machine in a heartbeat. It’s been a while since a child actor has sent chills down my spine quite like this. Then, of course, Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens continue their run at being horror movie badasses. But, I’ve got to give extra credit to Kathryn Newton who has sneakily established herself as a bit of a horror icon. There are sequences of this movie that when put together with Freaky and this year’s Lisa Frankenstein create quite the montage of scary, fabulous imagery. It’s always Mia Goth this and Jenna Ortega that, but I’m here to say I see you Kathryn. You’re a spooky queen too. Keep up the good work.
As you can probably tell, I loved Abigail. It’s a simple, fun movie that delivers on its premise. Just a couple bad people looked in with a little girl vampire. It’s fun. It’s bloody. And I’ll take movies like this any day of the week. You can bet I’ll be first in line for the next Radio Silence flick.
Score: 8/10
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