After a recent rewatch of V/H/S, which culminates with Radio Silence’s Halloween segment “10/31/98,” I thought to myself—influenced by hindsight—“These guys really understand how to execute fun-filled horror.” Their latest studio effort, the vampire ballerina thriller Abigail, cements that thought by blending B-movie antics with mainstream theatrical appeal. It’s stupendously gory, devilishly funny, and boasts all the trademarks of an excellent popcorn movie. Radio Silence does what they do best, turning familiar genre trappings—in this case, a graceful, gory, and very loose riff on Dracula’s Daughter—into a unique rearranging of horror tropes that feel excitingly reinvigorated as the body count mounts.
The premise is simple: kidnappers snatch someone’s daughter and must play babysitters for 24 hours. There’s the Queens ex-cop Frank (Dan Stevens), Canadian meathead Peter (Kevin Durand), bored nepo baby hacker Sam (Kathryn Newton), "high AF" getaway driver Dean (Angus Cloud), former soldier Rickles (William Catlett), and retired military medic Joey (Melissa Barrera). Everyone in the cast accentuates their designated personalities above being generic criminals, which breathes life into conversational banter while they kill time over shots of liquor. Radio Silence does a tremendous job with situational setups, sewing distrust into the group’s dynamic while poor little Abigail (Alisha Weir) lies shackled to a bed in an eerily silent mansion—she’s a perceived non-threat until, well, she flips from prey to predator.
Abigail is a squeamishly good lockbox thriller that features a pirouetting adolescent vamp who picks off hardened criminals quadruple her size. 14-year-old Alisha Weir dominates the screen as Abigail, nailing the physicality of agile ballet maneuvers and feral feeding attacks, in addition to mental warfare through hilarious verbal exchanges that toy with shocked targets. In a cast where Dan Stevens is chewing up the upper-class scenery as a former undercover officer—“Weirdo Dan Stevens” shines through in all his fuggedaboutit glory—Weir holds her own as the sole child star. Weir’s performance makes everyone around her better, whether that’s Durand’s bulky bruiser screeching like a scream queen at the pipsqueak’s sight or Barrera’s compassionate role as the one kidnapper who pinky promises to keep the tiny dancer safe (before vampire fangs start chomping).
Writers Stephen Shields and Guy Busick pen Abigail as a renegade love letter to the vampire subgenre, which Radio Silence runs with through their direction. The film leans into Near Dark poses and mocks Dracula deterrents like garlic while exploiting the goriest ways imaginable to deliver death by sunlight. The cast is having a ball playing rats trapped in this maze of mahogany walls and iron bars, just trying to avoid decapitation or becoming one of Abigail’s minions. Newton fits the rich-girl scaredy-cat mold with high-pitched reactions, while Stevens and Durand present like unsavory fellows you’d find sharing drinks at the Titty Twister in From Dusk Till Dawn. Barrera’s clincher as the straight character holding together stir-crazy maniacs is the binding glue, no better served than when Sam, Frank, and Peter come hobbling back—wounded and defeated—after a failed attempt to overpower Abigail (against Joey’s recommendation).
There are some minor quibbles with the story and length, but they’re nowhere near damning enough to negate the elation that horror fans will feel while watching Abigail. I haven’t mentioned William Catlett’s Rickles, who earns his codename during a playful Reservoir Dogs riff, because his arc is weirdly abrupt. That plays into the film’s spotty pacing, which doles out violence in chunks and can feel a bit tilted in terms of structural balance—which is more apparent given the film’s almost two-hour length. By the end, there’s a slight drag to Abigail’s hunt-and-kill routine that crosses the finish line at a brisk jog instead of an all-out sprint. It’s still a riot of a final battle and closes with a remarkably splendid reveal, but overstays its welcome milliseconds long enough for pacing hiccups and blunter storytelling executions to show their seams.
That said, the boys behind Ready or Not—a film I gave a perfect score—bring the pain and once again punch us in the face with action-horror supremacy. Radio Silence said, “Hey, blowing people up was pretty cool last time—let’s do it again and multiply the outcome by ten.” Abigail is peppered with gruesome stake stabs and flesh tears that appreciate the ferocious side of vampire cinema, all played tongue-in-cheek as composer Brian Tyler supplies hop-skippy orchestral tracks like Swan Lake gone psychotic. Actors absorb the brutality their characters behold as fuel to convey easily readable fear, because the tutu-wearing youngster is slurping spilled blood like a recess snack. Particular special effects had me cackling with joy, a testament to the delicious “Midnighter” qualities that Radio Silence features front and center.
With examples like Ready or Not, Abigail, and their Scream entries, Radio Silence deserves their place in conversations about today’s top working horror filmmakers. Abigail might not be their best, but that’s merely by catalog comparison. There’s still plenty of throat-ripping goodness to rave about in Radio Silence’s latest; we love a bloodsucking monster movie that treats its vampires as actual monsters. Even better, Abigail goes ravenous while wearing a smile, demonstrating the power of a hearty horror movie laugh. Creepy kiddos, goopy practical effects, and wicked vampiric reinventions chalk another “do not miss” winner from team Radio Silence—underestimate Abigail at your own risk.
Rating: 3.5/5