The Real Dracula's Daughter

Film: Abigail
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on Kid #1’s TV.

Sometimes, you see a trailer and you know you’re going to watch the movie in question. That was certainly the case with Abigail, a movie that ruins the big surprise in the trailer, and demonstrates that it ultimately doesn’t matter. To be fair, the big reveal in Abigail doesn’t happen at the end of the film, but is the driving force of the second act, so it’s not that much of a loss. So, I’m going to naturally talk about that reveal. Since it’s something that literally shows up in the trailer, this is not going to be anything like a spoiler.

As the film begins, we see a young girl performing ballet. Meanwhile, there is a group of people who are clearly planning something and that something is clearly kidnapping the girl. It all goes off without a hitch. The team of six kidnappers takes the girl to a huge secluded house with the plans to wait for a day for what will be a huge payout of millions for each person. All of this comes from the direction of a man named Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito).

Before leaving the team and the girl, Lambert gives the team of kidnappers code names, essentially naming them after members of the Rat Pack. So, while they all have real names, some of which we will found out eventually, but they won’t really be used that often. Our team consists of Frank (Dan Stevens), a former police detective gone bad; Dean (Angus Cloud), an addled wheelman; Joey (Melissa Barrera), a former Army medic and recovering morphine addict; Sammy (Kathryn Newton), a hacker from a rich family looking for kicks; Peter (Kevin Durand), Quebecois muscle; and Rickles (Will Catlett), a former Marine sniper.

But let’s cut to the chase. We find out that the kidnapped girl is the daughter of Kristof Lazaar (Matthew Goode), a legendary crime boss whose existence is doubted by some. Shortly after we learn this, Dean ends up decapitated and Rickles is attacked by an unseen creature. The other four determine that this means Lazaar’s equally legendary enforcer Valdez has somehow gotten into the building.

So what’s the big reveal? Valdez is in the building, and Valdez is Abigail, the kidnapped 12-year-old girl. And, Abigail is a vampire, and she has some serious daddy issues.

And that’s it. The bulk of the rest of the film is the remaining survivors figuring out how to survive the night and Abigail hunting them down. Our remaining kidnappers decide to go through the various vampire tropes and try to eliminate her. It’s soon obvious that while the stake through the heart might be the real deal, many of the other tropes are dismissed in the most entertaining way possible. Sammy, Peter, and Frank attack and are immediately put in their place. There’s a great moment where Abigail grabs a sleeve of garlic from Sammy and inhales it, and another where she rips the crucifix off Peter’s neck and repeatedly stabs him with it.

The thing about Abigail is that it’s fun. A lot of modern horror movies seem to have forgotten the fact that movies are supposed to be fun as well as tell a story. We’re supposed to be entertained by them. Not everything has to be challenging or be something that makes us cringe or disturbs our dreams. Horror movies are, at least at times, supposed to be roller coasters that are thrilling and perhaps scary in the moment, but once done, looked back on with laughs. Abigail goes for that sort of feeling, offering some tremendous amounts of explosive gore and blood and thrills for the moment, and then concluding. It’s not something terrifying or horrible. It’s fun, and it’s damned refreshing because of it.

The truth is that Abigail isn’t going to set the world afire, but it doesn’t have to. It’s not that kind of a movie and it’s not trying to be that kind of a movie. I would like a stronger ending. It feels like it cops out in the last five minutes, because the writers wanted a specific ending and wrote themselves into a corner leading up to it, but it’s not the worst way it could have been handled.

Dig beyond the vampire aspects of the film and there are some clear connections with other films. There’s a great deal here in common with The Usual Suspects, for instance. The entire kidnapping ends up being reminiscent of this for one thing, but the existence of Kristof Lazaar is absolutely a sop to Keyser Soze. There’s a part of me that thinks there’s a little bit here that harkens back to the ballerina from The Cabin in the Woods. In fact, if you told me that the impetus for this film came from that, I would absolutely believe you.

Anyway, there will certainly be people who like this both more and less than I do, but I have a hard time thinking that there will be horror fans who don’t find it at least entertaining. It’s not going to rewrite the genre, but not every roller coaster needs to be something new, either. Sometimes, you just want the same hills, curves, and loops that you’re used to in a slightly different configuration. Abigail is nothing more than that, and it doesn’t need to be more than that.

Why to watch Abigail: It’s something that a lot of horror movies aren’t: it’s fun.
Why not to watch: The last five minutes are a bit of a let-down.