Summer Chills: Abigail

2024, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett (Ready or Not) -- download

We usually reserve horror-ish movies for the "31 Days of Halloween" but sometimes we are just in the mood for something Halloween-ish.

Two things. One, I am not all that bothered by spoilers any longer; after The Matrix was spoiled for me, I got over it. But Two, I really am annoyed by movies that set themselves up with a "you are not supposed to know _____" in the opening act, yet still base their entire marketing campaigns on telling your what _____ was. Like, are we still so stuck on particular formulas to screenplay writing that we have to write the "oooooo, you will never see this coming" but immediately toss it away as unnecessary? 

So, in case you are not me, and dislike being spoiled, skip reading the post now.

The little girl they kidnap is a vampire. I mean, its the fucking premise of the movie.

Again, that said, knowing didn't ruin anything to me, and waiting for the characters to get there was kind of fun. In fact, that they go quickly into the, "ok, so she's a fucking vampire, how do we deal with THAT?!?!?" is hilarious. That said, its not really a comedy, but a funny, action, horror-ish movie.

Six low-rent criminals follow the entourage of an obviously very rich little girl after her ballet practice,  back to her penthouse and kidnap her. They then drive her back to a mysterious mansion in the countryside. We have the thug Peter (Kevin Durand, Swamp Thing), the sleazebag wheelman Dean (Angus Cloud, Euphoria), punk hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton, Freaky), sniper Rickles (William Catlett, Black Lightning), boss Frank (Dan Stevens, Legion) and all-around support Joey (Melissa Barrera, Scream). Yes, those are the names of the Rat Pack; low-rent criminals use aliases.

FYI the two names you don't recognize are Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford; if you knew who they were, your Rat Pack game is bigger than mine. Congrats.

Once inside the mansion they are instructed to bide their time while the fixer who arranged this job gets the ransom money. Joey, the pretty criminal, is tasked with being the only face the little girl, Abigail (Alisha Weir, Wicked Little Letters), will see and is meant to keep the girl calm & safe. In turn Abigail fucks with Joey, telling her father doesn't care about her, and apologizes as to what is going to come next. Frank is not thrilled about this ominous comment, and violently confronts Abigail, after which she reveals her father is the notorious crimelord Kristoff Lazaar. Apparently he is scary enough to make them all shit their pants.

Then sleazebag Dean gets his head ripped off, and they all assume it has to be the notorious enforcer who works for crimeboss Lazaar. Technically they are right. They confront Abigail only to find her mouth full of fangs. Also, they cannot get out of the house -- its all locked down.

The antics of survival are fun, amidst the chaos of dealing with a monster that looks like a 10 year old girl in a ballerina outfit. They believe they only have to survive until dawn, when the fixer will arrive with the ransom money. It takes them a long time to understand this was the plan all along -- there was no kidnapping plot -- they were kidnapped and are food and the basement pool full of decaying bodies says Abigail has been doing this a long long time.

It was a romp, which is pretty much what I said for the last movie we saw from the directors (Ready or Not), which was also a step outside the "31 Days of Halloween" tradition and was also a survival horror trapped inside a house. Weird parallels.