Whom does kidnapping work for? This is a question I wonder about because in the movies, kidnappers never get away with it. I’m thinking in real life, this is different because it keeps being a movie plot even when movie kidnap plotters end up dead again and again and again.
The comeuppance in Abigail does not come from the authorities or The Expendables or The Minions or whomever, but from the victim herself, who -if you haven’t seen the preview (and if you’re reading this, how can you have avoided it?)- turns out to be a powerful and particularly merciless vampire trapped in the body of a 12-year-old girl. Uh oh.
Are The Breakfast Club now mercenaries? One of the things that struck me almost instantly was how much the group of kidnappers resembled a grown-up version of The Breakfast Club. To put it in the “simplest, most convenient terms: Brain (Dan Stevens), Princess (Kathryn Newton), Criminal (Melissa Barrera), Athlete (Kevin Durand), Basket Case (Angus Cloud)” … and a black guy (William Catlett), cuz we now live in the 21st Century.
Listen carefully and you can almost hear Simple Minds in the background.
So the plot is fairly simple: Breakfast Club + black guy kidnap a little girl (
Alisha Weir) and take her to a semi-abandoned mansion (?) This should have raised alarm bells instantly: who takes a kidnap victim to an unfamiliar after party location? And why does the house in question seem both lived-in and abandoned at the same time?
The crew are told they’ll get $7M each for their troubles if they can hold the kid at the place for 24 hours. $7M is either “don’t ask questions” money (which is what happened here) or “ask many, many questions money” (which is what should have happened). The folks didn’t realize the danger until the house sealed itself, locking The Breakfast Club and the black guy in with a four-foot-tall apex predator.
Well, gosh, folks. Hope you can spend $7M in Hell. A piece.
Abigail is a fun film. Abigail is a bloody film. Abigail is a ballerina; imagine Black Swan on the attack. That’s the kind of film this is. It’s not a masterpiece, but this was -dare I say- enjoyable horror, which happens about once or twice a year if that. If you like horror and can stomach blood, this is a must see.
There once was a lethal Black Swan
Who slayed whenever music would spawn
Her elegant tutu
Would cake red with sinew
“Slaying the audience” wasn’t just a come on
Rated R, 109 Minutes
Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Writer: Stephen Shields, Guy Busick
Genre: Admiral Akbar Presents
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Who doesn’t like fun horror?
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Oh yeah, there’s a lot of blood
