Abigail (2024)

★★★★1/2

Abigail is AWESOME!  A brilliant, ORIGINAL horror comedy with odes to horror films that have come before it, creative new flourishes, a slick directorial style, and a memorable cast of characters! It’s hilariously vicious and so bloody (pun intended) entertaining. Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens are great in it -- but the whole ensemble wins you over from the beginning! The film is funny without ever sacrificing the horror or tone and has some really great twists that effectively change things up to keep the movie feeling fresh and alive. It’s clever, ridiculous, and just fantastic. I jumped, laughed, and had a ball. Abigail is everything I hoped it would be — a relentlessly entertaining thrill ride that outdoes the gore of Radio Silence’s first film, Ready or Not, with some impressively disgusting special effects. One of my favourite horror comedies in years — just had so much fun with this one! And if you’re like me and always complain about the lack of original genre films in theatres these days… well put your money where your mouth is and get out and see this original horror flick!

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Film Info:

Premise: After a group of criminals kidnap the ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, they retreat to an isolated mansion, unaware that they're locked inside with no normal little girl.

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Universal

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett

Written by Stephen Shields & Guy Busick

Cast: Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Alisha Weir, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, Angus Cloud, William Catlett, Giancarlo Esposito

Runtime: 1hr 49min

Rating: 18A

Horror, Thriller

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IMDb Rating: 7.1/10

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 84%

RT Audience Score: 88%

RT Critic Average: 6.5/10

RT Audience Average: 4.2/5

Metacritic Score: 63

CinemaScore: B

Letterboxd: 3.3/5

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Fun Fact: In an interview with Total Film, the directors felt they needed to apologize to the cast for the volume of blood they used on set. They said: "All of our movies are bloody. But I would say that this is definitely the most bloody. We spent a lot of time apologizing to our actors on this movie! I mean, blood is in the DNA of a vampire movie, and the amount of blood work in this one is... It's pretty extreme! But it's still fun.

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Trailer: