'Abigail' review: the horror of the kidnapping is a 'Home Alone' with fangs

The film team known as Radio Silence, made up of directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, plus producer Chad Villella, struck black (comedy) gold with their 2019 horror thriller “Ready or Not,” about a young bride, played by Samara Weaving, who has to fight her way out of a murderous game organized by her rich future in-laws. The film demonstrated its mastery of combining an irreverent tone with striking violence, and gave the team the responsibility of making the next two “Scream” films, the first without Wes Craven behind the camera.

With its latest feature, “Abigail,” Universal is entering the Radio Silence business, hoping that its brand of female-led horror can pay big dividends at the box office (and spawn a franchise?). With a script by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick, who co-wrote “Ready or Not,” Radio Silence has delivered what is essentially a spiritual sequel to its smash hit, this time featuring vampires instead of wealthy, superstitious sadists, and starring “ Shout out” queen Melissa Barrera.

Once again, the setting is a creepy old mansion filled with taxidermy and firelight. Once again, our heroine is a fierce and feisty young woman who has a single vice: Weaving's Grace had a penchant for cigarettes; Joey de Barrera devours hard candy. And once again, a group has been gathered in this isolated place and given a task that must be completed within a certain period of time.

In “Abigail,” the group is a gang of sarcastic kidnappers who have been hired to kidnap and then protect Abigail (Alisha Weir), the 12-year-old daughter of a rich and powerful man. Their boss, Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito), gives them nicknames to maintain anonymity: “Joey,” “Frank” (Dan Stevens), “Sammy” (Kathryn Newton), “Dean” (Angus Cloud), “Peter” (Kevin Durand). and “Don Rickles” (Will Catlett), then says goodbye to his “pack of rats.” They assume they'll drink all night with her hostage in the other room and collect her fee, but innocent Abigail is much more than she seems. Sadly, she informs her caretaker Joey that she is sorry for what is going to happen to them.

If you've seen the trailers, you already know that little dancer Abigail is a ferociously terrifying vampire who begins hunting and feasting on each kidnapper. “I like to play with my food,” she scoffs, revealing rows of sharp, yellowed teeth. Weir, who starred in “Matilda the Musical,” gleefully takes on this physically demanding role, combining ballet and brutal fighting, and is fascinating, but also quite funny. There's a long tradition of terrible girls in horror, from “The Bad Seed” to “The Exorcist,” and we can easily add “Abigail” to that canon.

The rest of the ensemble also deftly pirouettes from pranks to horror, led by Stevens, sporting aviators and a Queens accent as the cunning and unreliable Frank. Newton has appeared in his fair share of horror films, always flirting with the monstrous side. Durand draws on his French-Canadian roots by playing a muscular Quebecois man who has more brawn than brains. But Barrera takes center stage as the clever Joey, whose rare vulnerability is her sympathy for children.

There's a parent-child theme that doesn't simmer beneath the surface but drives the plot, and both Abigail and Joey find something in each other that they're missing. There's not much subtext, everything stays on the surface, and the exceptionally wordy script relies on exposition dumps to inform the audience of rumors, twists, deals and betrayals. The characters chat and chatter about the history of vampires and Anne Rice, “True Blood,” “Twilight” and “Nosferatu.”

Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett have a joyfully maximalist style of horror. The blood is dark and sticky; It not only gushes out, but forms geysers, projects and splashes. Bodies burst like water balloons under pressure, and sticky viscera rain from wall to wall. It's all them, but they pay homage to the greats: Kathryn Bigelow's “Near Dark,” the jumping vampires of “Blade” and an oblique script reference to the 1936 film “Dracula's Daughter,” which offers a double meaning to the movie.

“Abigail” is at times a little frivolous, over-the-top and even drawn out in its ridiculous Grand Guignol of exploding “sacks of meat,” but it is very much in line with the unique sensibility of Radio Silence, fashionable among audiences at the moment. .

The highlight of these films, from “Ready or Not” to “Scream” to “Abigail,” is their ability to tap into an emotional zeitgeist through their working-class heroines, who capture the mood of the moment. . Like Grace and Barrera's character Sam in “Scream,” Joey is world-weary and hardened, but determined to survive, to make it through the day. Bloodied and battered, she manages to find a shred of comfort in this godforsaken world, and that makes her the ultimate kind of girl we can believe in.

Katie Walsh is a film critic for the Tribune News Service.