Abigail
The 12 year-old ballerina performing Swan Lake to an empty house doesn’t know she’s under surveillance. The lavishness of her performance space is explained when she is picked up by a chauffeured Rolls and the large rambling estate she enters appears to be empty, although she senses something in her bedroom. Suddenly she is held down, given an injection and trundled into a waiting panel van, but her kidnappers don’t know what they’re up against when they take “Abigail.”
Laura's Review: C+
The "Ready or Not" filmmaking collaborative Radio Silence (directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and writers Stephen Shields ("A Hole in the Ground") and Guy Busick) deliver
the same hunted-in-a-locked-manor-house scenario as “Ready or Not,” this time with a supernatural element and the hunted the majority and while it eventually runs out of gas, its cast, especially young Alisha Weir (“Matilda the Musical,” "Wicked Little Letters"), helps get us over the tedious bits. It’s a better movie than “Ready or Not,” but not as good as Radio Silence’s last effort, “Scream VI.”
When the six kidnappers arrive at the equally lavish manor (actually Dublin’s Glenmaroon House) they’ll be holing up in for the next twenty-four hours, they’re greeted by mastermind Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito, TV's 'Better Call Saul') who lays out ground rules that include no real names be used, giving them aliases culled from The Rat Pack. Frank (Dan Stevens, "The Guest") is something of their leader, the only one to know Lambert and to have subdued Abigail with the aid of Joey (Melissa Barrera, SHO's 'Vida,' "Scream VI"), who takes on the mantle of the girl’s protector. Sammy (Kathryn Newton, "Lisa Frankenstein") is their IT specialist, Peter (Kevin Durand, "Cosmopolis," TV's 'The Strain') their muscle, Rickles (William Catlett, "A Thousand and One") their weapons expert and Dean (the late Angus Cloud, HBO's 'Euphoria') their driver who is also determined to break Lambert’s rule about romance as he awkwardly tries to woo Sammy.
Joey, who kept Frank from punching their charge when she struggled against them and who was aghast that their victim was a child, takes pity on Abigail, taking off the blindfold the girls says is too tight and cuffing her hands in front instead of behind her. She makes a pinky promise to protect the sniffling little girl in the pink tutu and sparkly sneakers. Leaving the room and dropping her mask, Joey proceeds to unmask the others, correctly assessing Frank as a former detective, Sammy as a poor little rich girl, Peter as mob muscle, Rickles as a former Marine and Dean as ‘not a professional.’ Observing her candy habit, Frank, in turn, outs Joey as a junkie and single mother who’s lost her child. But just who put these six together and who is Abigail’s father, the man they’re ransoming her for $50 million?
The answer to the latter question creates so much fear in those in the know, Frank’s ready to leave in spite of his potential share. After they calm down a bit the fun really begins when Sammy enters the kitchen to find Dean sitting at its table. Unfortunately, his head drops off, ripped off as if by a wild animal, a signature of the criminal overlord they’re trying to extort. Now it’s Rickles who wants to leave immediately, but in trying to do so, finds a locked gate that wasn’t in the doorway when they entered. Then barriers drop in all the windows.
It will be no surprise to anyone who’s watched the film’s trailer that Abigail is not what she appears and Weir is far and away the film’s most successful asset. The little girl who elicits maternal tenderness in Joey turns into a ferocious adversary, her ‘I’m sorry about what’s going to happen to you’ to her caretaker chilling in the extreme. She not only fast tracked to learning en pointe, but does her own stunts, some involving wire work. Also solid here is Barrera, the only other member of the cast that resembles a fully fleshed out character, although both Durand and Cloud paint sympathetic portraits as less than brilliant males. Matthew Goode ("Match Point") makes the most of a late cameo.
Makeup effects are really well done in a production which must have caused an artificial blood shortage. But for a horror film, Brian Tyler’s ("Scream VI," "Fast X") score is a bit pedestrian and there is no getting around the fact that the film grows repetitive.
Robin's Review: B
Abigail (Alisha Weir) is the 12-year old ballerina daughter of her vastly wealthy “tycoon” father. She is also the target of a team of kidnappers out to get a $50-million ransom, but they do not quite know what they bargained for with “Abigail.”
When there is a cast of notable actors – Dan Stevens, Kevin Durand, Giancarlo Esposito, Matthew Goode and Melissa Barrera – playing the kidnappers in this kidnapping yarn, I thought, there is hope. But, this veteran cast is not the reason to see this funky monster movie. That honor goes to its titular young star, Alisha Weir, who, apparently, did all of the well-choreographed stunt work as the mini-ballerina.
Veteran horror film directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett muster their talented cast with young Alisha Weir front and center. Things begin on the stage of a grand theater with Abigail doing a solo performance of Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. The camera rotates around and the huge theater is empty. Then, the ballerina is whisked home in a limousine.
Meanwhile, plans are being made by a team of hired guns. They just have to break in to the empty mansion where she lives and take her away to a predefined destination. The caper goes off like clockwork and they arrive at the hideout. They just have to keep the girl on ice for 24 hours but cannot show their faces or reveal their real names – easy peasy as the place goes into lockdown.
Then, they find out just what, not who, they are dealing with and things are not pretty any more. This is where “Abigail” changes from kidnap caper to full-blown monster movie. There are no surprises, except for Abigail’s exceptional “skills,” as havoc is wreaked upon the bad guys.
Actually, there are two stars in this flamboyant monster movie, Alisha Weir, as I said, and Melissa Barrera as kind-hearted kidnapper, Joey. The two play opposite each other the most while the rest of the capable cast must struggle against an unexpected and violent unknown in a “Ten Little Indians” way.
This is not a light-hearted horror flick that goes expected ways. It does go in expected directions but the blood-soaked journey is anything but light-hearted. There is a lot of ironic humor scattered throughout the story and the game cast suffer their indignities stoically. Weirdly, it was fun.
Universal Pictures releases "Abigail" in theaters on 4/19/24.
