Abigail (2024)

Alisha Weir gives a performance for the ages as a centuries old young girl with a blood lust 

A group of people are brought together to kidnap the daughter of a rich man. Each are promised a share of the 50-million-dollar ransom. It goes off without a hitch... until they realized that they are trapped in the house with a hungry vampire.

This film is a blast. This isn't really scary, since the brightly lit halls and set up doesn't leave much room for spooky stuff, rather it's more a tense action thriller because we don't know where this is going to go or how the living is going to deal with the plans of the undead hunter. However, you classify it, ABIGAIL delights with its bloody (very bloody) charms.

This film is near perfect from top to bottom. the performances are top notch, and everyone is invested in the mayhem. The effects are fantastic, to the point I'm not sure where the practical and CGI start and end. For example, a throw away bit with changing teeth amazed me and was the subject of a post screening discussion - was it practical or CGI? We weren't certain. Best of all the script insists on going its own way messing with us because we think we know the rules, but the film resets the table. It also realizes that this is funny and scary and plays up both sides as needed.

Wow.

This is a film that you react out loud to. At the screening I was at people were talking to the screen, laughing, screaming and generally having a grand time. People applauded.

While I'm not going to give you details, lest I spoil anything, I will say that odds are you'll guess some of what happens before it does, one or two turns are charted so you'll see them coming ahead of time, but you won't care because this isn't the of a film that is all about the turns. This is a film that survives on characters and joy in mayhem.  You'll like the characters, even the bad ones and you'll want to see who lives and dies.

Delightfully the film doesn't do things most horror films do these days. It doesn't over do on the jump scares. They are kind of pointless after a certain point in the film. Additionally, there is no gotcha ending. Yes, there is a possibility for a sequel (and I hope it never happens) but it doesn't need to telegraph it in a bogus ending twist. This is just a standalone film.

Actually, this film's plotting s wonderfully fair. Everything largely lines up there are no out of left field turns which is really nice.

Destined to become a classic because it's so much fun and endlessly watchable, ABIGAIL is highly recommended.