Abigail lets Ready or Not’s directors play around with vampire comedy

Vampires are some of our most malleable monsters. They can be lonely kids, lonely teens, misunderstood lovers, mass murderers, leather-clad drifters, regular dudes, or just about anything in between. All that flexibility (and the ability, often, to pass as human) means vampires can also come as a complete surprise to both audiences and the characters in the movies themselves, waiting until more than halfway through a movie before they really sink their teeth in. That special and narrow niche of surprise vampire movies, like From Dusk Till Dawn or A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, is the exact landing point for Abigail, the hilarious new action-horror movie from the directors of Ready or Not.

Eventually, as the trailers show, Abigail is about a ballerina assassin who also happens to be a vampire. But the movie starts out by playing its crime story straight. A group of criminals, each named after a member of the Rat Pack, kidnaps the daughter of someone rich. All they have to do to get their $50 million payout is keep the girl locked in a mansion for 24 hours. As it turns out, the girl’s father is one of the most dangerous crime bosses around, and he’s known for dealing harshly with people who wrong him. And that’s where the child vampire comes in.

I’d be reticent about even mentioning the vampire in this movie if it wasn’t such a central thrust of the movie’s marketing. Coming in without expecting any bloodsucking would be a fantastic treat, and it’s clearly one directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett had in mind. After they play their crime angle straight for the first half, they treat the vampire reveal like a shocking twist, with absolutely hilarious reactions from the entire cast, followed by a knowing conversation between them about what they each remember about vampire-killing lore. The good news, though, is that even with the surprise blown in the trailer (and even in the trailer’s official thumbnail!), Abigail is still a blast.

Once Abigail reveals herself as a deadly supernatural creature, the movie transforms into more of an action slasher, rather than going for scares. In that way, Abigail feels more like Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s earlier movie Ready or Not than like any other vampire movie. Both movies are mostly set in heavily locked-down mansions where someone is viciously, comedically hunted down. And both feature a deep love for explosions of blood and guts. After Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett’s brief detour for two messy, chaotic, clumsy entries in the Scream franchise, Abigail proves they’re still excellent at creating tension in the hallways of massive houses, and flipping their horror into action at a moment’s notice.

But for all the movie’s entertaining scares and surprisingly fun fight scenes, Abigail’s greatest strength is the sense of humor of most of its cast. While the script, co-written by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick (one of the directors’ frequent collaborators) is often clever in its own right, the cast manages to sell even the lamest jokes with their perfect delivery.

The late Angus Cloud (Euphoria) is excellent as the team’s resident stoner burnout, Dean, a charming creep who people can’t help but indulge. Kevin Durand (Vikings) is hilarious as Peter, a musclebound thug with a heart of very tarnished gold, a tremendous temper, and absolutely no thoughts in his head.

Image: Universal Pictures

But none of them can measure up to the movie’s two brightest stars. The ringleader of the bumbling kidnappers, Frank, is played by Dan Stevens (The Guest), who proves once again that he’s got all the charisma necessary for stardom, with the looks of a leading man and all the instincts of some of the funniest character actors alive. Whether the camera is focused on him or not, Stevens is always on, throwing cockeyed glances at other characters from the background, or posturing with hysterical machismo even after a 10-year-old has started decapitating his team.

Even better than Stevens, though, is Kathryn Newton (Freaky, Lisa Frankenstein), whose every line demands a laugh. Newton plays Sammy, the team’s tech genius, with a perfect mix of put-on defensive sarcasm and genuine delight at being around so many sketchy criminals. She plays drinking games with the muscle, teases Peter, and pushes buttons with reckless abandon that’s always a joy to watch. But her real strength comes in her one-off reactions once the chaos starts. Newton always sells her cutaway gags and one-liners just right, with clever deliveries that even make stale lines feel fresh and funny.

The one true weak point in the otherwise stellar cast is Melissa Barrera (Scream 6, In the Heights), who’s tasked with playing Joey, the stoic, straight-laced member of the team, who has more empathy than the rest combined. It’s the kind of role that’s supposed to be the soul of the movie, an admittedly thankless job in most comedies. But Barrera isn’t up to the task. Her delivery is always disappointingly flat and emotionless, conveying nothing more than boredom and failing to communicate much of anything about the character.

Image: Universal Pictures

Instead, the soul of Abigail comes, ironically, from its vampiric title character, played with equal parts venom, cleverness, and vulnerability by Alisha Weir. It’s clear that the filmmakers are more than happy to have the audience root for the monster this time around, rather than for any of its lovably dim criminals. Abigail’s backstory is as tragic as any of her victims’ backgrounds, and more thoroughly explored. It’s the same kind of longing for connection and human love that populates many vampire stories, like Let the Right One In, another child-vampire story with surprising pathos. Like Lina Leandersson in that movie, Weir in Abigail is particularly good at selling a child vampire’s genuine pain. Her history is never used as an excuse for her bloodlust — it’s just a vaguely sympathetic explanation for her rage.

Abigail’s most impressive quality is how perfectly measured it feels at every turn. While the movie’s marketing keeps it from being a true entry in the surprise-vampire canon, the creators find its surprises by switching between horror subgenres instead. It’s a comedy about self-serious criminals for as long as it needs to be, a vampire slasher for as long as that’s fun, and a story about a vampire who craves love and attention by the end, fluidly shifting from one tone and genre to the next at exactly the right moment. Even more impressively, each version of Abigail is just as fun and bloody as the last.

Abigail debuts in theaters on April 19.