"What can I say? I like playing with my food."
Abigail is a 2024 supernatural horror film written by Stephen Shields (The Hole in the Ground) and Guy Busick (Ready or Not) and directed by Radio Silence duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin & Tyler Gillett. It stars Melissa Barrera, Alisha Weir, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, William Catlett, Angus Cloud (in a posthumous role), and Giancarlo Esposito.
A loose reimagining of Dracula's Daughter, the film follows a gang of amateur criminals who accept the task of kidnapping the young daughter (Weir) of a powerful, enigmatic underworld figure… only for the tables to turn in violent fashion when their target reveals herself as a murderous vampire. The film was released April 19, 2024.
Abigail includes examples of the following:
- Actor Allusion: This isn't the first time that Matthew Goode has played a vampire.
- Third time that Melissa Barrera plays a character who survives and is drenched in blood.
- Advertising by Association: The trailer boasts that the film is “from the creators of Ready or Not and Scream VI”.
- Affably Evil: All of the kidnappers except Frank qualify as this but special mention goes to Peter: he's a big golden retriever of a man who cares about his team's welfare and shows some remorse for his actions but he's also a professional leg-breaker and he's (reluctantly) willing to torture and murder Abigail, who he believes to be an ordinary 12 year-old girl.
- Ambiguous Situation:
- Can the drug in the syringe actually knock out a vampire or was that just yet another instance of Abigail fucking with the heads of the crew?
- Was Abigail truly Lazar's daughter, or was she just a child he adopted and turned into a fledgling centuries ago? Abigail mentions being turned by him, suggesting the latter but it's left vague whether or not, if she's truly her father's daughter.
- After Abigail bites Sammy's arm, Sammy remains human for hours before Abigail starts puppeteering her; while Abigail was clearly ready for Sammy to turn, it's not clear if it took time for Sammy to become vulnerable to her control, or if Abigail deliberately delayed taking over her body to mess with her.
- Animal Motifs: Rats. Lambert assigns the team code names based on The Rat Pack, which also symbolizes how they're intended to be like rats in a trap for Abigail. She even kills a rat moments before taking down Dean.
- Apologetic Attacker: Abigail apologizes to Joey for what’s about to happen to her, though her tone suggests it's insincere and meant as a taunt/threat.
- Artistic License – Biology:
- Unless Abigail had recently gone on a murder binge of truly epic proportions, it would be impossible for all the dozens of bodies at the pool Sammy falls into to be all so "fresh", and for all of them to be seemingly in the same state of decomposition, specifically if they have been sitting in a pool of water. That said, since Lambert was also at the house and it appears that the property has some history for Lazar, it may be that they and other vampires use that house as a "dumping ground" for other bodies, rather than leaving the bodies where they died and risking attracting attention.
- Frank gets impaled just above his knee with a wooden stake. Once the stake is removed and the leg bandaged, he walks with only a minor limp and even outright runs at points, when his leg should be incapable of supporting his weight at all.
- Awesome by Analysis: Dean claims to be an expert at reading people, but then gives completely inaccurate readings of the team. Joey, by contrast gives accurate and detailed summaries of Frank, Sammie, Dean, and Peter, and a much shorter still accurate one for Rickles. Frank then turns this back around on her, accurately deducing she's a Recovered Addict.
- Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite their faults, nevertheless Abigail and Kristof truly care for each other. As she only killed her fathers enemies to get him to love her.
- Back-Alley Doctor: Joey became this after her morphine addiction got her discharged from being an Army medic. She accidentally killed a powerful underworld figure she was operating on while high on morphine, which is why Abigail and Lazar targeted her.
- Bait-and-Switch: The crew think that Peter is getting attacked by Abigail as they hear him scream over the radio, turned out he only got a splinter from a cue stick he sharpened into a wooden stake.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Hinted at by the end when Abigail convinces her father to let Joey go free after the two had teamed up to defeat Frank. It's not stated, but Joey was the only member of the gang who tried to bond with Abigail.
- Big Bad Wannabe: Lambert tries to recruit Frank to help him kill Abigail and Lazar and take over the latter's criminal empire, only for Frank to decide that he wants it all for himself, turning on him right after Lambert makes him a vampire.
- Brick Joke: After Lambert gives out the Rat Pack-inspired nicknames, Peter doesn't get it and is even a little offended, thinking that Lambert is calling them rats. It isn't until much later in the movie (several hours later in-universe) that he finally gets the reference and finds it amusing.
- Bookcase Passage: Double Subverted. Abigail tells Frank about a secret passage in the library on the right hand bookcase, but is revealed to have been lying. However, it's later revealed that there is a hidden passageway on the opposite side of the library, though it only leads to the security room.
- Cat Scare: Dean hears a weird sound in a room adjacent to the kitchen and looks around, eventually finding a rat. However, just as he's leaving the room, he hears something kill the rat just before Abigail attacks him.
- Celebrity Paradox: It isn't totally clear whether Dracula is known in this universe, but the characters reference multiple other works of vampire fiction, ALL of which reference Dracula.
- Classical Movie Vampire: When Lazar finally shows up at the very end, he looks almost exactly like the classic Universal Horror image of Dracula. Helps that it's very strongly implied that that is indeed who he is.
- Closed Circle: The mansion is on lockdown and the group had to surrender their cell phones beforehand, keeping them from leaving or calling for help, forcing them to actually find a way to deal with Abigail.
- The Cracker: Sammy, the hacker of the group. Joey criticizes her belief that she's different from the other criminals because she doesn't directly hurt people.
- Creepy Ballet: While Abigail may look like a Dainty Little Ballet Dancer, she's also a bloodthirsty predator who puts her ballet skills to use in combat. Special mention goes to the scene where she dances with Dean's headless corpse.
- Creepy Blue Eyes: Abigail, Kristof, Sammy, Lambert and Frank all have Icy Blue Eyes as vampires.
- Curse Cut Short: A vampire Frank has this the moment before he blows up when Abigail and Joey stake him.Frank: Oh, fu- (explodes in blood and guts)
- Dirty Cop: Early on, Joey correctly guesses that Frank, one of her fellow kidnappers, used to be a detective. Abigail confirms this, stating that he was an undercover cop in her father’s organization that came to enjoy the gangster life. Ultimately, Frank willingly becomes a vampire with the goal of taking over Lazar’s organization, becoming the Final Boss that Abigail and Joey must put aside their differences to stop.
- Disc-One Final Boss: Abigail spends most of the film as the most pressing threat to the protagonists, but after Frank is turned and decides to take over Lazar's organization, she's forced to team up with Joey to stop him.
- The Dreaded: Kristof Lazar, a notorious crime lord with a long reach, and his top assassin Valdez. The former’s name is enough to make hardened corrupt cop Frank attempt to quit the kidnapping job, while the latter is said to have violently decapitated a room full of would be witnesses against the crime family in a high rise under the noses of the cops guarding the only way out. Once Abigail is revealed as a vampire, it’s very quickly pieced together that she is Valdez and her father is a vampire too. In fact, her father implies that he is actually an even more famously dreaded vampire.
- Dwindling Party: Abigail picks off her kidnappers one by one. By the end of the movie, only Joey is left, and even then, she only survives because Abigail and her father let her go (after some convincing in the latter's case).
- Enemy Mine: When Frank is turned and becomes the bigger threat, Joey is forced to work with Abigail to defeat him, as Joey obviously can't stop Frank on her own and Abigail is too drained of blood after Frank's previous attack to hold him off by herself.
- Enfant Terrible: Abigail only looks like an innocent child, when she's really a sadistic and hungry vampire. She later admits to the group that she "[likes] to play with [her] food" before attacking them.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Joey, one of the kidnappers, admits to Abigail that she has a son while trying to gain her trust. Same goes for Abigail and her father Lazar, who reconnect at the end of the film.
- Evil Versus Evil: The main conflict of the film is between a gang of criminals who are willing to kidnap a (seemingly) helpless, innocent little girl with hopes of extorting money out of her rich father, albeit out of implied desperation and with no stated intent to hurt her... against said "helpless, innocent" little girl, who reveals herself to be a bloodthirsty, sadistic vampire.
- Final Boss: Abigail is the main threat throughout the movie, but when Frank turns full vampire and tries to kill her and Joey, the two put aside their differences to take him out.
- Final Girl: Joey is the only one of the criminals to live to the end.
- Fingore: Abigail’s hand explodes after coming into contact with sunlight after Joey smashed the wooden beams blocking the windows to save Frank from getting bitten by her. It regenerates though.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing: When Abigail puppeteers Sammy the latter gains Abigail's Creepy Blue Eyes to signify that she's under her control. Later, when Frank bites Joey and tries to puppeteer her she keeps her natural brown eyes, showing that she's only faking being controlled.
- Foreshadowing:
- While Abigail dismisses and mocks the garlic and crucifix as threats, she notably dodges being staked. As we see when Frank later stakes Lambert, it's very effective.
- Lambert names the gang after the members of The Rat Pack and even calls them "a little pack of rats." This takes on a new meaning after The Reveal that the job was a trap and they're all meant to be prey for Abigail. They're trapped like rats.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: Sharp eyed viewers might notice a crest visible in a few shots (such as on the library floor, or the security gates over the front entrance) which heavily resembles the Dracula crest from some of the old Universal movies.
- From Camouflage to Criminal: Joey and Rickles bond and trust each other more than the other members of the crew because they're both former military (she was an Army medic and he was a Marine) who are now using their military training towards crime.
- Genre Savvy: Played with. Once they realize they’re dealing with a vampire, most of the surviving crew members begin planning their counterattack based around what they know about them from Vampire Fiction, wondering if they’re dealing with and an "Anne Rice vampire", a "True Blood vampire" or a "Twilight vampire". This promptly gets them their asses handed to them when almost all those weaknesses turn out to be just fiction, making it look like they were Wrong Genre Savvy. But then direct sunlight and stake through the heart turn out to be just as effective as in In-Universe fiction.
- Greater-Scope Villain: Abigail's father Kristof Lazar is a notorious crime lord and implied to be Dracula himself.
- Half Way Plot Switch: Similar to another vampire flick Abigail spends its first half setting up the kidnapper crew's personalities and then adds the element that one of them might be the Serial Killer "Valdez", setting up a possible Paranoid Thriller angle...and then Abigail reveals that she is "Valdez" and a powerful vampire, surprising the audience members who didn't see any of the film's trailers with a genre swerve into Vampire Fiction.
- Hope Spot: Sammy realizes she could potentially short out the security system without her tools if she gains access to the power source, which will reset the entire system and let them escape. Sadly, she dies before they can find any such power source.
- A House Divided: Abigail spends some time trying to turn her "kidnappers" against each other. The most successful is when she convinces Joey that Frank is Valdez, eventually leading to Joey holding Peter at gunpoint to protect Abigail and Frank pointing his gun at Joey to get her to back off. At this point, she seems to decide this has run its course and breaks free.
- How Do I Shot Web?: It becomes a plot point in the climax of the film after Frank gets turned into a vampire and he just assumes that the power to turn people into puppets after biting them will be as automatic as the Super-Strength and the Healing Factor. But it turns out to be a skill, which along with "all the really cool vampire shit", takes a very long time to master, allowing Joey and Abigail to take him by surprise when he believes he's turned Joey into his puppet when she's really still in control of herself.
- Hypocritical Humor: Peter asks why they're not allowed to share their names, and when given the answer (so they can't rat each other out), Dean snarks that it should have been obvious. Peter shoots back that Dean asked the same question earlier.
- Idiot Ball: Frank takes Abigail at her word about the Bookcase Passage, even though he should know full well that Abigail lies. Sure enough, the passage doesn't really exist.
- I Have Many Names: Lazar confirms that he has had many names over the years… implying that one of them is Dracula.
- Immortal Immaturity: Abigail may have the intellect of a centuries-old vampire but emotionally she may as well be actually 12 years old.
- Immune to Bullets: Abigail is at one point shot in the head and gets up almost immediately afterwards with no sign of pain.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Frank impales Joey through the shoulder with a fire poker in the climax, making a point to nail her to the furniture behind her so she can't escape. A little later, he decides to torture her by pulling her off the poker rather than pulling it out of her.
- Frank gets a cue stick impaled through his leg by Abigail.
- Peter gets stabbed (non-fatally) with his own crucifix by Abigail.
- It Amused Me: The whole reason for the elaborate setup of Abigail arranging for the people she wants dead to kidnap her so she can hunt them in a mansion is because she finds it fun — or, as she puts it, she likes playing with her food.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Frank may be an asshole, but he has times when he's completely right, and the look on Joey's face makes it clear she realizes it.
- When Abigail tells Joey that Frank is Valdez, Joey immediately confronts Frank at gunpoint and demands answers. Frank calls her an idiot for not realizing that Abigail is lying and trying to turn them against each other, which is indeed exactly right.
- When Joey is talking about her reasons for leaving her son and how she is saving up money before she goes back to him, Frank is completely right that she needs to stop making excuses and just show up and be a parent.
- Jumpscare: Dean scares Sammy when she's watching Woody Woodpecker in her room by lighting his lighter behind her while wearing a mask. She's not amused.
- Large Ham: Lazar does this momentarily near the end by shouting Abigail’s name when his daughter stands up to him in defense of Joey and calms him down after telling him Joey saved her life and she saved hers while he was absent.Abigail: She saved my life!Lazar: ABIGAIL!!!
- Lockdown: The kidnappers find themselves trapped in the house when metal plates suddenly cover every exit.
- Locked Room Mystery: One of the more infamous accomplishments of Valdez. He once got into a hotel and massacred three informants plus an entire FBI team, despite the only ways in being the guarded front door (which wasn't used) or a twenty-three story window. Once its revealed that Abigail is Valdez, the implication is that she simply flew up to the window.
- Logical Weakness: Abigail may have vampiric super strength but she still has the mass of a 12-year old girl, meaning that the physically larger kidnappers can still throw her around if they get their hands on her (not that they're capable of doing lasting damage). It's only her centuries of experience that allows her to keep up against vampire Frank, who is both heavier than her and matches her strength.
- Ludicrous Gibs: All the vampires that are killed immediately explode in a mass of blood; Sammy is struck by reflected sunlight and Lambert and Frank are each staked.
- Karma Houdini: At the end of the movie, both Abigail and her father are still alive and free to do as they please; Joey's biggest victory is that the two vampires let her live after she helps Abigail dispose of Frank.
- Meaningful Name: "Abigail" is a Hebrew name for "my father's joy".
- Minimalist Cast: Only nine characters get any amount of lines or characterization, and the bulk of the movie takes place in a locked down manor. By the end of the movie, only three of them are left alive.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: Abigail and other vampires have additional rows of razor sharp teeth on top of their natural ones.
- Mortality Phobia: Joey has a moment of this when Abigail’s father Lazar arrives near the end, becoming frightened that he would kill her when he senses her blood, in which Abigail stops him from harming her and making him come to reason.
- Mugging the Monster: The plot of the film is a young girl being kidnapped, only to then reveal to her kidnappers that she is a vampire.
- Mythology Gag: The ballet music used in the trailer is Swan Lake, which was memorably used during the opening titles of Dracula (1931), foreshadowing Abigail’s true identity as a vampire.
- No Ontological Inertia: A simple bite from a vampire can turn the victim into the vampire's puppet. If the vampire is killed however, the victim will be fine. Whether this is because the change is reversed, or simply because the "on" button is gone is debatable.
- No-Sell: Frank shoots Abigail in the head, only for her to spring back up and wipe the wound off her head like it's makeup. Garlic and crosses won't do anything either.
- Our Vampires Are Different: They can only be killed with a stake through the heart, direct sunlight, or completely draining them of blood. Garlic and crosses have no effect, as Frank, Sammy, and Peter learn the hard way the first time they try to fight her, and bullets do nothing as well; even a direct bullet to the brain only puts Abigail down for a few moments. Indirect sunlight will cause them to start to smoke while direct sunlight will explode a limb and causes instant death if it hits the head or torso. When they die, they explode into Ludicrous Gibs, though they do have a Healing Factor that lets them recover from non-fatal injuries up to and including lost limbs. They have superhuman strength and agility such that even a child vampire like Abigail can overpower three grown human adults, and can also hover in midair and have limited flight up short distances. However, they are still limited by their human form, meaning a centuries old vampire like Abigail can be tossed around by an adult due to her smaller size. One is turned into a vampire by having their blood drunk, and then drinking the vampire's blood in turn. A simple bite from a vampire can also turn the victim into the vampire's puppet, though this is an ability they have to learn how to use, and while under their control the victim will themselves gain vampiric abilities and weaknesses, such as the aforementioned exploding in direct sunlight. They are also not immune to drugs and chemicals with Abigail being knocked out twice by an injection (assuming that wasn't just Abigail being a little scamp) and they can be hurt and even killed by bites from other vampires. Joey also mentions feeling Abigail's pulse, so either they still have a pulse or can fake one.
- Painful Transformation: Frank’s transformation into a vampire after letting Lambert turn him does not look like a pleasant experience, including projectile vomiting up large amounts of blood.
- Parental Abandonment: As Abigail taunts, Frank and Joey both abandoned their spouse and children to pursue their criminal life. Joey (unlike Frank) regrets it, and wants to return to her son.
- People Puppets: Abigail bites Sammy and turns her into her minion, their movements synchronized. Frank later tries to do the same to Joey, but it doesn't work because, as Abigail explains, he's just been turned and this ability isn't just a power to be acquired, but also a skill to be learned, over a long time.
- Pinned to the Wall: In the final battle, Peter stabs Joey through the shoulder, pinning her to the furniture behind her. Then just to be a sadistic asshole, he pulls her off the stake, rather than simply removing the stake.
- Pity the Kidnapper: A group of people kidnapping a little girl who turns out to be a vampire more than capable of murdering them all.
- Pre-Mortem One-Liner:
- The page quote, delivered by Frank in the trailer as he apparently kills Abigail.
- In the film, Abigail survives and returns the favor, informing Frank that it takes a long fucking time to learn how to do "all the really cool vampire shit", before killing him.
- Professional Killer: Abigail works as this for her father Lazar under the identity of "Valdez".
- Rebellious Princess: Sammy is a rich kid who became a black-hat hacker because she was bored.
- Reflexive Response: When Joey has him at gunpoint, Frank calls out "Don't do it Peter". Joey reflexively turns to look at Peter, giving Frank time to draw his own gun.
- Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: Lambert turns Frank in exchange for helping him kill Abigail and her father. Frank stakes him in the back after turning as payback for setting him up.
- Riddle for the Ages: Since they die long before Abigail delivers her Infodump, it will forever remain a mystery what exactly Dean and Rickles did to end up on Lazar's hit list, or what their real names even were for that matter.
- Samus Is a Girl: When people start dropping, the protagonists assume that they are being hunted by Valdez, a feared Professional Killer who works for Lazar who they think has been sent to rescue Abigail. Once Abigail reveals her true nature, they put two and two together and realize that she is Valdez.
- Say My Name: Lazar yells Abigail’s name near the end in his Large Ham moment when his daughter stood up to him and defended Joey.
- Ship Tease: Joey and Rickles seem to take a quick liking to one another, with Rickles even briefly leaning in for a kiss when they agree to watch each other's backs. Thanks to Rickles' quick and brutal death, it never gets past teasing.
- Shout-Out:
- When discussing how to kill Abigail Sammy asks if she’s like the vampires in Anne Rice’s works, True Blood, or Twilight. Another one recoils in disgust at the mention of the last one.
- Also the use of the Swan Lake Overture in the trailer, also serving as a nod to the 1930s Dracula film.
- At one point, Sammy is seen watching the Woody Woodpecker cartoon Pantry Panic.
- Also to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None, the trope codifier of the Ten Little Murder Victims trope of which Abigail is an example.
- Abigail's plan of luring criminals who stole from or otherwise hurt her criminal organization to kill them all, is reminiscent of The Usual Suspects.
- Shout-Out Theme Naming: The kidnappers' codenames are Joey, Frank, Sammy, Peter, and Dean, all taken from members of the Rat Pack. Since there are six of them, the last one gets the codename Don Rickles. Keeping with the theming, the crime boss Kristof Lazar shares his last name with Irving "Swifty" Lazar, the agent for original Rat Pack member Humphrey Bogart.
- Social Media Before Reason: When Lambert tells the kidnappers about the "no cell phone" policy and collects their phones, he has to physically take Sammy's away from her, as she's trying to post on social media.
- Spiritual Antithesis: To Ready or Not (2019), Radio Silence's previous film about a female character facing off in a Big Fancy House against a group of people trying to kill her. In Ready or Not, said female character was the hero and presented as coming from a working-class background, with the villains being a family of Upper-Class Twits, while here, she's the villain and is depicted as exceptionally wealthy, with the heroes being a group of lower-class criminals.
- Standard Snippet: Fitting for the title character’s activity as a ballerina, the trailer opens with the Overture of Swan Lake. Doubles as a Shout-Out to the original Universal Dracula (1931).
- The Starscream: Lambert takes no pleasure in helping Lazar and Abigail. He offers to turn Frank in return for helping him kill Abigail and her father.
- Super-Strength: Abigail is much stronger than humans, able to easily break down her cell door and overpower grown adults.
- Tomboyish Name: Melissa Barrera and Kathryn Newton's characters respectively go by Joey and Sammy (both taken from male members of the Rat Pack), though these aren't their real names. Those would be Ana Lucia and Jessica.
- Trailers Always Spoil: The fact that Abigail is a vampire is a centerpiece of the trailer, but in the film itself, it's not revealed to the audience until nearly halfway in, the film instead setting up the idea that they're being targeted by Lazar's Professional Killer (which is admittedly true, in a sense). The trailer also gives away Dean's death by decapitation, Abigail breaking out of the cage that the kidnappers lock her in, and the fact that Sammy gets puppeted by Abigail, and there’s that part at the end of the trailer where Frank has become a vampire with his glowing eyes and fangs being noticeable when you look closely.
- Trap Is the Only Option: While locked in the library with no possibility of escape Joey and Frank see a secret passage open by itself and immediately recognize it as a trap, but since there's no alternative, they go in anyway.
- Tuckerization: Frank's real name, Adam Barrett, combines the names of Radio Silence's VHS collaborators, horror filmmaking duo Adam Wingard and Simon Barrett. Wingard and Barrett are also behind 2014's The Guest, in which Frank's actor Dan Stevens played the lead.
- Undead Child: Abigail is a child vampire.
- Unknown Rival: With the possible exception of Frank, none of the members of the crew were aware that their individual criminal activities had landed them on the shit list of Lazar's criminal empire, which is the reason they're being targeted for death by Abigail.
- Villain Respect: Abigail to Joey, to the point that she convinces Lazar to spare Joey because they had saved each other's lives at the end.
- Weakened by the Light: Sunlight kills vampires in an extremely gruesome manner, causing whatever part of their body is hit by it to explode in a bloody mess.
- Your Vampires Suck: While Abigail feigns vulnerability on a few other occasions, she flaunts her immunity to garlic and crosses, possibly implying she considers those two weaknesses so silly they're insulting. The movie also shows how while vampires are THEORETICALLY weak to staking, actually using that weakness in a fight against someone with superhuman abilities is easier said than done. Finally, the movie arguably features a Take That! to vampire fiction being used as escapism by showing that the "cool" vampire powers require centuries of practice to actually use.
- Zombie Infectee: Sammy gets bitten by Abigail and fears that this is the case. She's right, but not in the way she thought, as Abigail's bite instead turns her into Abigail's puppet.
