Abigail

Abigail

Whomever decided that Alisha Weir was the perfect choice to play a child vampire was clearly having a brilliant day at work. Stepping from Matilda into this is such an expertly fun choice that at times one feels like her default persona is running rings around adults, although this time there’s a little more bite…

At this point, vampires are so inherently interwoven with the fabric of cinema that going a year without a new story of one is a real anomaly; since 2020 alone we’ve had more than fifteen of them (and that’s not including some fine additions on the small screen as well – hello there Midnight Mass). There have been highs and lows throughout them all, Blood Red Sky and Renfield being some fun highlights, and there have been some duds. Also, sidebar, for the love of god will Universal please release The Last Voyage of the Demeter in the UK – some of us would rather not commit piracy. But circling ever languidly back around to the point, so many vampire projects means that film makers really have to shake the tree to find new angles to take this in. And this time, luckily the golden apple has fallen! Stephen Shields and Guy Busick have drummed up a story that’s part one M3gan and another part Scream sequel, and all good fun.

This is never going to be the next Nosfaratu, it’s never going to be the new gold standard of monster movies, all it needs to do is have fun with it’s audience and not pull its punches when it comes to the blood, gore, and kills. And thankfully, this covers both. Whilst it takes too long for the central premise to bear it’s teeth, but when it eventually does, it ramps up all the detail as much as it can. It finds as many ways to cover its central characters in blood, gives us the brilliant entertainment of seeing a 14 year old deploying the ‘F’ word, and has no qualms over being as squelchy as possible. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett launch us into a premise and setting that is basic and uncomplicated, and then proceed to reach into their duffel bag of goodies for image after image of excellent new additions to the canon of vampire movies – seeing Weir dance around with an unusual partner early on is a sheer delight. As M3gan did with it’s central character, the sight of a young child terrorising a group of adults over and over again never gets old, and each time Weir returns to the screen the picture lights up infinitely.

And that is where it falls over it’s own feet though, the moments when Weir is off camera. The final act changes our perspective and, predictably, loses it’s momentum and struggles to find a way to bring itself to a close effectively. Each time the third act decides to add an extra element, it sways more and more away from the basic premise that made it fun for the most part. But in the end, the ride does find it’s destination, which most importantly doesn’t leave us as a viewer unsatisfied. The cast for the most part are great and not underused, if some of them are typically typecasted. The story beats are so predictable that one would be hard pressed to not see them coming marching over the hill with all the bravado of a football hooligan crowd.

But in the end, none of that really matters. This film just wants to you to have fun. To sit back, shut up and watch the sheer outrageous brilliance of a teenage ballerina vampire, hungrily devouring people in consistent, and increasingly entertainingly, ways.