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Summary:
After a group of criminals kidnap the ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, they retreat to an isolated mansion, unaware that they're locked inside with no normal little girl.
Director:
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Writers:
Stephen Shields, Guy Busick
Cast:
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Melissa Barrera as Joey
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Dan Stevens as Frank
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Alisha Weird as Abigail
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William Catlett as Rickles
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Kathryn Newton as Sammy
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Kevin Durand as Peter
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Angus Cloud as Dean
Rotten Tomatoes: 87%
Metacritic: 66
VOD: Theaters
That was just a plain old fun time. The actress who played Abigail was fucking brilliant.
She was spectacular in Matilda
the whole movie is spectacular. it's so weird that it doesn't get talked about more often. i'm not into musicals at all (or songs with vocals for that matter) but there are so many good tracks in it.. 'when i grow' up and 'naughty', 'the school song' is so clever i was just grinning when i realized what they were doing and the choreography and energy of 'revolting children' is just so off the charts..
I was blown away by her performance. I have never seen such a menacing performance from a child actor before. That entire scene in the cage my goodness. Up till the end you weren’t certain if she was fucking with Joey or being real. Every scene with her I was blown away thinking when she grows up she is going to be everywhere if she wants to.
This is probably my second favorite movie so far this year only behind Dune 2.
She’s excellent in this. Really chewed the scenery (pun intended).
Agree. She literally stole the entire movie.
Good thing it’s named after her character!
Alisha Weir
The entire cast was fire
Agree - a fun movie, and looked like the cast had fun doing it...
I liked this, it’s so sad that Angus Cloud died before this released, I know a lot of people were pulling for him to be a breakout star from Euphoria. I got the vibe they might’ve dipped into the blooper reel just a little bit, included more of his lines than would’ve originally made the cut just to make sure he had the most out of his screen time.
On a less sad note, I love that Kathryn Newton is never afraid to do weird shit. I’ve loved her in every horror movie I’ve seen her in, heres hoping she’s in many more to come
I was looking up what the production schedule was like for this movie, and it's interesting that they really only filmed for a week or two before the strikes shut everything down. Then Angus unfortunately passed away a month later. But they said they filmed all of his scenes beforehand
You wouldn’t know, his role felt perfectly tuned too
I didn't know he passed away. He was the only character I didn't care for in the movie. Figured his character would die first or be the one to help Melissa Berrera be the final girl..
The trailer showed him being dragged, that and knowing that his scenes were completed before the film finished shooting kinda made me know that he'd be the first to die. Honestly though, he had more screentime than I expected, I assumed it would just be an extended cameo and it was just about more than that.
Love her performance in Freaky
She’s great in Lisa Frankenstein too!
Lisa Frankenstein is an awesome movie
Between Kathryn being in it and Sammie and Dean as nicknames I thought there was supernatural references before getting to the Rat Pack.
Yeah the fist bump was wildly out of place. It must have been them out of character
Use this exact set and 60% of the script and you’d have the best Resident Evil movie of all time. Every bit of this down to the electronic locks just oozed Resident Evil to me.
I was thinking that my self. The whole mansion seemed like something out of Resident Evil
Yeah the mansion definitely did the heavy lifting on making it feel like RE movie but there was a ton of little things that added to it.
The shot of the woman thief opening the door into the mansion was straight out of RE 1. They knew what they were doing. There were homages to other stuff as well. Some From Dusk Till Dawn lines etc.
As soon as they stepped foot into the kitchen I was like "This is the Mansion from Re1!"
The more obvious connection to Resident Evil besides the setting and the presence of Kevin Durand (from Resident Evil: Retribution), is that Abagail is basically The Red Queen if The Red Queen were a vampire.
The core premise is a group of people being terrorized by a dangerous entity pretending to be a little girl, who veers from childlike innocence to gleefully violent to apologetic about what she's done. And ultimately the female survivor and the entity come to an understanding. There's even a major plotline in the movie about disabling Abigail with drugs so they can bargain with her, which correlates to using the EMP to knock the Red Queen offline and then threaten her into telling them what is going on, and how to escape the facility.
Haha I was thinking the same thing. Especially when Jeoy and Ricks figure out their plan, they turn their backs and start walking kinda was reminiscent of a video game in terms of pacing and energy. Totally made me think of resident evil
The whole time I was thinking Melissa Barrera would make a great Jill Valentine or Claire Redfield, maybe moreso as a Claire.
That part where Joey shoots Peter in the side and then he IMMEDIATELY hands his gun over to her… hardest I’ve laughed in a theater in a long time!!
Rickles' death/body at the mantle gave me heavy "Kenneth getting eaten by the first zombie" vibes
This worked perfectly as a horror/comedy.
I went in expecting to like it, but that was SO FUN.
Dan Stevens needs to become a thing - he is a blast on screen.
Watch The Guest (2014). He is on another level in that movie
It’s the movie that cemented my love for him forever
Oh I’ve been begging for him to be a thing since I saw that. Absolutely fantastic
Those are FUCKING onions
I mean, we’ve been trying since Downton Abbey
His performance in Legion never gets talked about enough.
I love Legion, but that show made a point of being as confusing as possible
Between this and Lisa Frankenstein, I see that Kathryn Newton is trying to collect the Infinity Gauntlet of classic horror villains.
Don’t forget Freaky from a couple years back, another certified Kathryn Newton banger
I just watched that! Newton is what made it from bearable to fun imho (along with the besties)
“Your touch makes this pssy drier than sandpaper you fcking monkey.” Is a line I’ll never forget
She’s got her own competition though between Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera…
Scream Queens are so back.
Don’t forget Samara Weaving
Nobody banshee screams better than her
Fun fact: her scream here was actually her reaction when she found out she would appear on James Corden's talkshow. There's even a compilation of her screaming in Ready or Not. My favorite is
"WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!".
This movie was like an stylistic sequel to Ready Or Not. Same director too.
Actually, various people who worked on Abigail returned from Ready or Not and the new Scream movies. Incl. co-writer Guy Busick, the producers, director duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, composer Brian Tyler, lead Melissa Barrera (Joey in this one; Samantha in the Scream movies), and the casting director, Rich Delia.
Mia Goth too.
Isn't she the Killer Queen though?
And Maika Monroe!
Anya Taylor-Joy and Mia Goth too
She fought a werewolf in Supernatural and a demon in Paranormal Activity 4. The Gauntlet’s almost done,
Can't wait to see her in the Creature from the Black Lagoon
Yeah the more I see of her the more I like her. She's an interesting actor.
" Sammy, THOSE ARE FUCKING ONIONS!" 🤣🤣🤣
I loved it, probably the most fun I've had in the theater this year. So far, I do have a question though why is Joey not a vampire at the end? I know she was okay because "he's not alive" but just a moments earlier we saw Frank kill his bite sponsor and he still had his powers
They made a point to show that Lambert's infection of Frank had an extra element - he says he will get full autonomy and be a proper vampire, and he drips his own blood in Frank's mouth after biting him. This causes Frank to vomit blood and become a full vampire. Seems like intent is very important in this version of Vampire lore - Abigail points out that Frank doesn't know what he's doing, so he isn't able to possess Joey as a thrall.
I enjoyed the movie a lot but this was the one drawback for me. The ending was just too convoluted. Everything was great until they went into the secret passage. The movie went on for 20 more minutes, but could have been streamlined to 10.
Agreed. I was having a blast till they went into the passage, really fell apart then. Too many lame twists and reveals in a matter of minutes, and the ending with the dad appearing felt really off.
It was such a jarring change. Things were chugging along nicely as vampire vs humans with just enough backstory to keep me interested in what happens to the characters. Then it suddenly switches to oops all vampires and 3 minutes of exposition between Esposito and Stevens. (sorry, bad with character names)
Yeah, that still sounds like a huge cop out to me.
This movie was far more concerned with being fun than making sense. And I definitely did have a lot of fun watching it.
Also, wtf was up with them turning Abigail into a “good guy” in the end? This is a murderous psychopath and should have been disposed of by the end.
Around the time Joey was calling her son I was convinced her and Abigail would team up to kill Frank, but then I thought Joey would turn and become the parent Abigail was missing in her life. Made sense with a lot of what they were foreshadowing, with Joey feeling massive guilt about abandoning her son, and Abigail desperately trying to win her dad's love. I feel like that would have made more sense, but either way I had a great time.
I don't think it is only intent, but that it takes a while for someone to turn into a minion. Sammy seemed to take several hours before her bite healed and she became succeptible to Abigail. Frank bit Joey and expected her to immediately do his bidding.
Frank got “the full package” and became a proper vampire. Joey didn’t drink any vampire blood so she didn’t, and through supernatural line of succession killing her vampire frees her from the curse.
I don't see how she didn't get some of his blood in her mouth at the end to complete the transformation.
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That little girl is incredibly talented
Alisha Weir was also great in the Netflix Matilda
It's quite a leap going from playing Matilda to a ballerina vampire. In just over a year, no less.
Dan Stevens.
That's it, that's the post.
2024 is a blessed year with 3 Dan Stevens movies
And I'm here for it. I might just go home and binge Legion now
Do it, I watched it recently and I'd forgotten how good it was
I love Dan Stevens. He is such a weirdo. The movie was fun, a step down from Ready Or Not but him and Newton elevated this movie. I feel like this is one of those movies that will get a second life on FX, TNT, or streaming.
There's a shot near the end where he looked like Bill Paxton in Near Dark and that was cool as fuck.
I’m so smitten with him.
He was fantastic in this movie. He gave off all the right vibes for the character, portrayed really well.
Was he channeling Michael Keaton on purpose?