Vague Visages’ Abigail review contains minor spoilers. Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett’s 2024 movie features Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens and Alisha Weir. Check out the VV home page for more film reviews, along with cast/character summaries, streaming guides and complete soundtrack song listings.

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Radio Silence — the filmmaking collective of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett and Chad Villella — delivered an auspicious debut with the gloriously gory Ready or Not (2019) before putting their own spin on the Scream franchise with the inventively nasty fifth and sixth installments. The talented trio returns to original IP with Abigail, a movie that would’ve fared better without teasing its murderous ballerina vampire in promotional materials. Fortunately, the film’s pre-release marketing campaign doesn’t rob Abigail of its entertainment value, though it does make it a less essential experience. 

Melissa Barrera, the lead of both Scream (2022) and Scream VI (2023), reunites with Radio Silence after being unceremoniously booted from Scream VII for expressing her views about the ongoing genocide in Gaza. She portrays Joey, a struggling single mom and recovering alcoholic who is just one element of a rag-tag bunch of low-level criminals tasked with abducting the titular child, whose father is a powerful man with money to burn. If the protagonists keep the kid contained for just one night, there’ll be a massive payout for everybody involved. Unfortunately, Abigail turns out to be a bloodthirsty, centuries-old vampire, and she doesn’t take kindly to being bundled into the back of a van and sequestered in a crumbling mansion right after dance class. 

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Screenwriters Stephen Shields and Guy Busick expeditiously set the scene with an exposition dump via Joey’s spot-on guesses about what each of her cohorts gets up to outside the confines of their current job. There’s the weathered former cop (Dan Stevens, having an absolute blast), the rich kid acting out (the always entertaining Kathryn Newton) and a dumb heavy from Canada (Kevin Durand, elevating otherwise lazy jokes through sheer force of will). William Catlett, meanwhile, portrays a damaged former soldier, while the late Angus Cloud sadly demonstrates the limits of his talents by doing what he did in Euphoria to less effect. The actor is out of place, drawling delivery grates to the extent that it feels like he’s playing the same character. 

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As Abigail’s protagonists descend on a mansion, Joey proves that she’s got a heart of gold underneath it all by being kind to the titular character. Thus, when the body parts start flying, she’s kept mostly out of the fray, allowing the former franchise lead to flex her Scream Queen muscles yet again. With a haircut fashioned to resemble Chrissie Hynde’s iconic look, Joey constantly sucks on sweets to keep her cravings at bay — a neat character trait that never feels shoehorned in. Barrera is inherently watchable, and the former soap star is considerably more comfortable in Abigail than she was in that first Scream movie. Her character feels lived in, and the performance is measured rather than mannered.

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It’s easy to believe that Joey is both a struggling mom and a ruthless criminal willing to do whatever it takes to make a quick buck (the fact that she’s in no rush to get back to her young son provides an interesting wrinkle to what could otherwise have been a one-note Strong Female Lead). Barrera’s sweet, soulful eyes winningly communicate the cracks in her armor. Newton, who is quickly becoming a Scream Queen in her own right, thanks to lively turns in the terrific Freaky (2020) and the otherwise execrable Lisa Frankenstein (2024), has considerably less to do but has tons of fun as the spoiled kid desperately trying to piss her parents off. Less convincing, however, are her character’s supposed tech skills, but this is more a failure of an underwritten role than the the actor’s fun performance. 

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Although Abigail is Barrera’s film, Stevens nearly runs away with it. His cold, calculating Frank is the kind of asshole you eagerly look forward to being torn limb from limb. He makes young Abigail look sympathetic in comparison. The talented British actor, who broke with The Guest (2014), is having a major moment right now. And even when Abigail doesn’t quite work, Stevens’ performance shines through. Clad in Jeffrey Dahmer-esque glasses and with a thick, often entirely unconvincing New York accent, he revels in portraying a complete scumbag. Stevens even pays homage to Bill Paxton in Near Dark (1987) through a visual gag that will please horror fans.

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Abigail doesn’t quite reach the heights of the aforementioned Near Dark, and unfortunately much of the blame should be placed at the feet of the marketing team, which sold the film as “ballerina vampire kid goes on a rampage.” Abigail doesn’t reveal her true nature for a good 30 minutes into the movie, and — because viewers know what’s coming — these scenes are robbed of the necessary tension, making them a bit of a slog to get through. Matilda star Alisha Weir is perfectly fine as the diminutive, sharp-toothed menace, but she’s more convincing in Abigail’s louder moments than when she’s playing a put-upon youngster with daddy issues. However, Weir more than holds her own opposite veterans like Durand, and she should be applauded for throwing herself full force into such a meaty (in all senses of the word) role. 

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If nothing else, Abigail establishes several crucial tenets of Radio Silence’s unique approach to horror. The filmmakers love pulpy, exploding bodies and soak the Final Girl in blood from head to toe. The violence in both Ready or Not and Radio Silence’s two Scream installments is more gruesome, but Abigail has a few surprises up its sleeve and should satisfy gore-hounds who think they’ve seen it all. The issue is that the story isn’t really up to snuff. Abigail was originally envisioned as a reimagining of Dracula’s Daughter (1936), but, at some point in the development process, the plan changed. That title would’ve given the game away in the same manner as Abigail’s marketing campaign did, of course, but it also arguably would have demanded a tighter focus on the premise. As it stands, there’s a lot of bagginess. Despite this, the legendary Giancarlo Esposito receives a glorified cameo. 

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There’s more to love than hate in Abigail — from the insanely over-the-top violence to the fresh take on vampire mythology — and most of the dangling threads pay off in a pacy, satisfying manner. The film is a flawed but fun enterprise, neither indispensable nor entirely throwaway. At the very least, Barrera proves her worth as a leading lady, which should leave those who wrote her off so easily filled with regret. However, on this evidence, she doesn’t really need it anyway.

Joey Keogh (@JoeyLDG) is a writer from Dublin, Ireland with an unhealthy appetite for horror movies and Judge Judy. In stark contrast with every other Irish person ever, she’s straight edge. Hello to Jason Isaacs.

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