Abigail

A group of criminals previously unknown to each other are hired to kidnap the daughter of a rich and powerful man. Once successful they just need to wait it out in a deserted mansion for the ransom money to roll in. Unfortunately they have locked themselves in with no ordinary 12-year-old girl! 

The set up is swift. The team come together, capture the girl and arrive at the mansion to receive their brief from “Lambert” (Giancarlo Esposito) all within the opening 15 minutes. Now furnished with fake names based on the Rat Pack we then meet our crew via “Joey” (Melissa Barrera) who is challenged to a parlour game where she tries to guess information about various members of the team. We discover she is an ex-army medic and has a son about the same age as the girl they have kidnapped. “Frank” (Dan Stevens), the assumed leader of the group is an ex-detective, “Sammy” (Kathryn Newton) is a hacker who comes from money, “Peter” (Kevin Durand) is the muscle with low IQ, “Rickles” (William Catlett) is an ex-marine and Dean (Angus Cloud) is an inexperienced wheelman. 

It is not long though before things start to go bump in the night and Abigail (Alisha Weir) is revealed to be a murderous vampire. 

What follows is a phenomenally entertaining horror comedy that features some old and new spins on the vampire mythology, buckets of blood and a few jump scares. 

The cast here are fantastic and all of them get to have a lot of fun. Kevin Durand is brilliantly funny as the muscle whose brain does not quite keep up with events as quickly as everyone else involved. Kathryn Newton cements her quirky scream queen credentials after the likes of Freaky and Lisa Frankenstein. Melissa Barrera does the same having briefly led the Scream franchise before giving us this sympathetic leading lady performance. But the real plaudits go to Dan Stevens whose “Frank” is hilarious, pragmatic and amoral all at once. 

The creative team of Directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet with writer Guy Busick has now brought us Ready Or Not, Scream (2022), Scream VI and this in the last five years. And here they have merged their leading actress from their Scream movies with the same tone and similar story to Ready Or Not to deliver a fantastic watch. 

There could be an argument that the film is too similar in style and tone to Ready Or Not, but given how fantastic both features have been I am more than happy to let that criticism pass. 

Get down to your local multiplex and get ready to laugh at the screen getting sprayed with blood.