Daily 156: Abigail

[00:00:00] 156. Let's get to the new film Abigail, which is currently on digital demand and rental. It is directed by Matt Battinelli-Ulpin and Tyler Gillett who also directed Scream 5 and 6 as well as Ready or Not. It stars Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Alicia Ware, William Catlett, Katherine Newton, Kevin Durant, Angus

[00:00:25] Cloud, and a few others. And the synopsis is, 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.

[00:00:44] So when I heard about this one I didn't really take much stock in it, barely knew anything about it, and it just seemed like a fairly standard mainstream horror film. I was like alright well I'll get around to it when

[00:00:57] I get around to it. But then I was browsing one night and I was like oh hey this is directed by who I just mentioned and it has Melissa Barrera who's also in Scream 5 and 6. I was like okay perfect. And I think even though it's not a

[00:01:12] masterpiece, it's not as good as Scream 5 or 6, this was so refreshingly solid. It doesn't do anything that reinvents the genre or whatever, but it's very much a genre mashup which is a very signature style of these two directors

[00:01:33] and what it sets out to do it does really well. And there is something even though I don't love Ready or Not as I talked about on the Scream franchise show which you can check out, there's something

[00:01:47] about these directors since they got involved with Scream that is just clicking with me. And something that I mentioned on my Letterboxd review is I hope that these two directors and Melissa Barrera work together forever

[00:02:05] in horror. I think they are the perfect trio. And I don't know exactly the reason for that but she works so well in their films and they find a way to make her such an interesting, damaged, flawed hero. And she's just a great actor in general

[00:02:22] but I think they are a perfect match. Their style to me in a nutshell is their horror is just bloody enough, gruesome enough to be impactful but it's not too much so that it turns people off or it's really getting away from the commercial

[00:02:44] aspect. Their films are just long enough to where they can have enough focus on character so usually it's around two hours, hour 45, but it's not too long to be self-indulgent and it's not too short to be really disposable and forgettable.

[00:03:04] There's just enough there in the writing. And they give their, maybe it's partly due to casting as well, but each character I feel like has a distinctive enough personality in this movie and in the screen films to where they're all

[00:03:17] memorable or at least relatable enough, complex enough to be invested in. Then they incorporate just enough humor to where it makes the overall vibe of the movie entertaining enough. It's not just dark and dour and it's not super

[00:03:37] super over-the-top and cartoony. There's that fine line of tone. Their editing is clean, their direction is unpretentious but confident. Going back to the genre mashup aspect, there were so many times in this movie

[00:03:55] and I'm not someone who tries to look ahead in movies. I am usually with what's going on in that scene. I'm not really looking towards the end or saying, oh this is probably gonna happen. That's just not what I do in movies intentionally

[00:04:08] or unintentionally. But there are so many moments in this, so many scenes that they took a fairly predictable moment, a twist, a reveal and they turned it on its head. They added just enough flair to keep you guessing and to be like, oh

[00:04:24] that's so cool. Like, oh that was good. And oh that was really clever. So I really was engaged through this whole thing. The performances are very solid and the young actress who plays Abigail, fantastic. And it's really hard

[00:04:41] to cast a good young or a kid in a movie like this where they have such a big role. It's so over-the-top especially in horror where emotions are extreme and there's a lot of crazy moments but she did fantastic.

[00:04:58] I really enjoyed the ballerina, black swan, Swan Lake incorporation into this where there's for example, not to spoil anything too much, but the moment where Abigail is dancing with an unexpected partner. Just to leave it at that. And actually

[00:05:16] before I get too far, I really benefited because I read this after, I benefited from not having watched any trailers. So I would not watch anything from this movie before you watch it if you do end up watching it because apparently the

[00:05:31] trailers as many do nowadays, they gave away a lot of big moments in the movie whether it's story or horror, whatever it might be. So try and go in blind. But some specific moments, I think the opening setup is great and I was

[00:05:51] immediately engaged with what was going on in that mystery of what they're doing. The Clue sort of mansion I loved. I think it's shot really well and I love the different hallways and secret corridors. Like it's very much paying an homage to

[00:06:08] films like Clue and a lot of early horror which is a great thing but not so much so that it's really derivative. At least that's how I thought. Again, it's that fine line. The big turn of events that gets things

[00:06:22] going with Abigail is very, very good. It almost goes into how the Scream franchise works where everyone is a suspect, you don't know who to trust, could there be multiple people involved. One of the best sequences probably is

[00:06:40] when they're in the basement and they have a certain character trapped and then they get out and things go nuts. Oh and quickly, Dan Stevens because I saw him first where he got his break in Downton Abbey and it's so

[00:06:57] nice to see someone like him who played a very traditional English member of royalty go on to have this huge, very diverse, at times very commercial career. I mean he was just in the Godzilla Kong movie so he has really become a very

[00:07:13] interesting actor both as a leading man and in this where he's more supporting. I think he's very solid and everyone works well together. It's hard to describe without spoiling it but the twist with Catherine Newton and what happens to her towards the end and that cross-cutting I think

[00:07:33] is brilliant. The final big showdown is awesome and I don't want to sound too generic with the things that I like but it's one of those films that just continually gave you new things to munch on and enjoy and that

[00:07:51] final moment with revealing who is Abigail's father which I don't know how many people who are aware of this movie already know that. I didn't. I could kind of guess but that was still a great climactic moment.

[00:08:05] I would highly recommend it and I would say it's a little underrated because I feel like not many people have talked about it. I know it got decent reviews but I feel like it's already been sort of forgotten. So that one is a heavy four out of five.