Abigail

I don't know that I've heard Tchaikovsky ever used so menacingly before, but here his "Swan Lake" and some deadly pas seul are used to good effect! A group of kidnappers has been assembled by "Lambert" (Giancarlo Esposito) to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy man. They are to whisk her away to a remote, quite spooky, manor house where she is to be held hostage til dad stumps up $50m. Thing is, this butter-wouldn't-melt little girl has a secret even bigger than most of the rather disparate gang of folks who used their complementary skills to snatch her. These folks are led by "Frank" (Dan Stevens) and it's "Joey" (Melissa Barrera) who is left to keep an eye on the young "Abigail" (Alisha Weir). Quite quickly we realise that it's not her who is trapped in their web, but vice-versa and what now ensues sees quite a fun series of daft and gruesome encounters as their gang gradually dwindles and they have to fight for their lives! It runs out of steam a bit towards the ending - which seems to happen quite a few times, but a solid cast including the entertaining Kevin Durand and Kathryn Newton, some quickly paced direction and some pithy writing keeps most of this moving along with the diverse range of characters (and intellects) making for quite an enjoyable romp in a sort of "Cluedo" with loads of ketchup style. Who knew red onions were so versatile?

Abigail isn't exactly a novel idea but its executed convincingly enough to offer up a moderately watchable, horror, experience. In spite of its grounding in vampiric horror, I didn't find Abigail especially frightening. There's no sense of creeping menace and frankly, that's a shame. It does "have a go", so to speak, at first but never really takes it far enough or handles the material subtly enough, to pull it off. Instead, Abigail is more in line with you standard vampire fare, where for the majority of the film you know who and what, you are dealing with. This tends to move the narrative and exposition, more towards a bloody action framework. This film is not unwatchable, don't get me wrong. The acting is decent, the setting appropriately creepy and the horror sequences are polished. That said, I did find myself feeling like I'd seen it all before, in one sense or another.The ending fizzes when it could have "popped", too. In summary, Abigail's handling feels like a missed opportunity to do something far more terrifying and creepily menacing, than what we get with the actual final product. Not bad but nothing special.