Movie Review – Abigail

Abigail is about a little girl, a ballerina, who is kidnapped by a group of people set on a big payday. Turns out, she’s a vampire set on playing the part of innocent girl ballerina. at least until she starts playing with her food.

This film is an unpredictable, gory revenge romp with a vampire twist. It’s Violent Night meets 1999’s House on Haunted Hill with a ballerina vampire in place of Santa. From a macabre dance between the ballerina and a headless corpse to the vampire pulling the metaphoric strings after she turns one of the humans into a vampire, this film uses all the old vampire tropes to its advantage. Not quite new, but inventive enough to be entertaining.

Melissa Barrera and Dan Stevens are great, as is the rest of the cast. Each pulls their own weight respectively with a script that is written well enough to keep you guessing. Alisha Weir is surprisingly good as Abigail with shades of adult emotion much in the way that Dakota Fanning did when she was a child. Kevin Durand and Kathryn Newton make the most of small parts, especially Kathryn Newton who was also in Lisa Frankenstein this year. Even Matthew Goode arriving at the end of the film is eye-poppingly good. Less than five minutes of screen time, and I need more Matthew Goode as a vampire.

Four and a half out of five stars for this brilliant addition to the vampire genre.