Movie Review: Abigail (2024) seen in theatres

Horror: not recommended for young children: violence, gory scenes, coarse language, minor scenes of child endangerment

The movie follows a a young girl named Abigail, (played by Alisha Weir,) who is shown to be an avid fan of ballet as the opening scene shows her dancing on a stage with no audience while a group of mercenaries hide out in the bushes intending to kidnap her.

As she leaves the ballet, a group of people within two other cars driven by separate people, (which were thought to be ubers by me,) follow Abigail home and hide in her bedroom as she arrives. As Abigail enters her room, she takes a phone call supposedly unaware of her captors being present. As the phone call ends, she is captured by the group of people and though she tires to fight them off at first, she is eventually subdued by a needle which knocks her unconscious. Her body is placed in a body bag and she is successfully kidnapped and brought to a remote house in the middle of nowhere. Once they arrive, they are informed by a man who supposedly works for them, (whose name I cannot remember,) not to give Abigail any information about them, (their name or the reason for her abduction, etc,) as this would lead to them getting caught by police. However, he gives each one of them their own names to go by, (of which I can only remember a few, Sammi, Dean, Joey, and Frank,) as they complain that they want to have names to go by. Joey is enlisted to check in on Abigail every so often who is handcuffed in one of the bedrooms and is shown to be scared crying and begging to home like any child would in that situation.

Joey assures her that nothing bad will happen to her as long as her father, (who is supposedly a very wealthy man,) gives them money. Abigail says that her father does not care about her.

That night, Dean is seen walking through the basement of the house when he is suddenly killed mysteriously offscreen, (it is not shown what actually happens to him.) He is found later by Sammi tied to a chair in front of a table. As she goes to speak to him, his head falls off causing Sammi to vomit profusely as the sight of his headless body. The rest of the group believed the murder was committed by one of Abigail’s father’s associates.

After the rest of the group enter the room where Abigail is and confront her, as they claim she knows something, she breaks free of her handcuffs and goes brutally assaults the four of them leading the group to believe that they’re now trapped with her. After they find out she is a vampire, they attempt to kill her using a wooden stake and garlic. They find her on a stage dancing with Dean’s headless body. As the three charge her, they are stopped when she stabs Frank with the wooden stake and stabs one of the Peter, (another one of the captors names I now remember,) in the chest numerous times with the cross around his neck. He somehow survives this but is severely bloodied.

After Joey says that the only thing that can stop her is a needle, (as shown in the first scene of the film,) the group pursues her throughout the house only for her to use her powers to get the better of them until Joey is able to use the needle. The scene cuts to Abigail waking up in a cage seemingly unharmed where she reveals the true identities of each of her captors as well as why they were brought there. It is then revealed that the man at the beginning of the film works for her father and that she was in on it all along. She promises to let one of them go alive if they let her out of the cage and says that the one who chooses to do so will be the one that lives. The group are able to catch on to her game and initially refuse to give in but after Frank is left alone with her, she manages to get him to agree to unlock the cage with the promise of telling him how to get out of the house alive in return. After Frank unlocks the cage door, Abigail forces her way through and attacks him until she is subdued by sunlight.

The group try to find a way out before the sun sets and Frank uses the advice given to him by Abigail to try and free the rest of the group. When it fails, they decide to search the house for clues on how to get out before the sun sets. As Sammi, (whose real name is later revealed to be Jesse,) and Peter walk through the dark house, he assures her that they will find a way out. Seconds later, Abigail’s voice can be heard saying the name “Jesse” and she becomes possessed by Abigail and kills Peter as a result. After this, Abigail kills Sammi/Jesse from within as her body explodes.

The group then finds the man from the beginning of the film who says that he works for Abigail’s father and then offers Frank to join him in killing Abigail. After Frank agrees, he kills the man and pursues Abigail on his own.

From here, Joey goes back and forth between being a villain and the hero as she shows signs of wanting to kill Abigail but at the same time, wanting to help her. After a few minutes of bloody gruesome action sequences, Joey ends up siding with Abigail and aids her in killing Frank. Moments later, Abigail’s father arrives intent on killing Joey with Abigail convincing him not to as she saved her. Abigail’s father, (who is also a vampire,) warns Joey to take her leave as they are about to feast on her despite Abigail’s objections.

The ending shows a beaten and bloodied Joey leaving the house although she is barely able to walk as she gets in a vehicle and drives away.

I was really looking forward to this movie even though I’m not particularly a fan of the horror movie genre. I’ve never seen a movie with so much blood in my life and I’ve never been this much of a fan of a horror movie. I’ve seen other supposed horror movies such as M3gan and Truth or Dare. Those movies pale in comparison to the level of bloody violence and all around brutality of this movie. A squeamish person should not watch this movie, nor should a person who has high blood pressure as it will cause the blood pressure level to spike to unhealthy levels. As a matter of fact, this movie should not be recommended for the elderly as well as kids. However, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie as it’s on the edge of your seat action as well as the violence put forth by a little girl made this fun to watch.

In a small child friendly scene, (perhaps the only one in the movie,) Sammi/Jesse, (played by Kathryn Newton,) is seen watching the children’s tv show “Woody Woodpecker,” although the children of today may be unaware of who that character is. As it is shown to be on tv twice during the movie, as well as the fact that Abigail is only 12 years old, I would say there is a total of two child friendly scenes throughout as well as one character that children of today would be able to relate to, though needless to say, Abigail is not your typical child.

I have to say that upon first glance of the trailer for this movie, I imagined the plot much differently with Abigail being a normal girl who is kidnapped in the middle stages of the film having only became a killer due to the abuse she would have suffered after being abducted, where she is abducted early on in the actual movie and is shown to have been a vampire the whole time. It would have also been better for the movie if the plot was spread out more and the reason for her being abducted would have been revealed before she was kidnapped. As I was watching the movie, I was surprised to see that her father did not call the police after she was kidnapped either which confused me.

I also notice that Abigail was rarely seen at all in the opening of the movie, only appearing in a few scenes and having very few lines in the beginning of it, as it focused basically on the captors more than it did on her.

One flaw I will give this movie is it’s predictable ending. In a movie titled “Abigail” about a girl who is a vampire where the trailer shows her as a villain, it was very predictable to me that she was the one behind all the murders that took place.

Though the tagline for this movie is unknown, I have a couple that I could probably think of that would fit, maybe: “Its what’s on the inside that counts,” or “She’s a real troublemaker,” as well as “Meet the real devil child.” or “Babysitter wanted…for lunch.” Those are just some of the taglines that I could attach to this film.

This was a great movie. I really enjoyed it.

Movie rating: 10 out of 10