Warning: major spoilers for Abigail.

Summary

• Abigail is inspired by Dracula's Daughter, with references to Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.
• Abigail's characters mirror And Then There Were None archetypes, adding a twist to the adaptation.
• Hollywood reinvents Agatha Christie's murder mysteries with Abigail, deviating from a literal adaptation.

The latest vampire movie, Abigail, has strong connections to the most famous vampire of all, but it’s also a secret adaptation of a controversial bestseller by Agatha Christie. As one of the most popular monsters in literature and other forms of art, vampires continue to be the source of inspiration for many movies. Such is the case of Abigail, a vampire horror comedy directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett. Abigail is based on 1936’s Dracula’s Daughter, while also serving as a reimagining of it, but that’s not the only inspiration behind this story.

Abigail follows a group of six criminals who don’t know each other but are tasked with the kidnapping of Abigail (Alisha Weir), the daughter of a powerful underworld figure in New York City. The group succeeds and takes Abigail to a secluded mansion, where they meet with their leader, Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito). However, they soon discover that Abigail is no normal girl, and she’s not only the daughter of a feared criminal, but also a vampire. Abigail has different horror references, but one subtly gives away that the movie is a secret adaptation of an Agatha Christie bestseller.

How Abigail Compares To Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None

There Are Interesting Similarities Between Abigail & And Then There Were None

And There Were None follows eight people who received an unexpected personal invitation to a small, isolated island off the Devon coast.

Among the many pop culture references in Abigail is one to Agatha Christie’s 1939 mystery novel And Then There Were None. Abigail makes Frank believe that she will tell him how to get out of the mansion if he lets her out of the cage, and tells him there’s a secret door in the library, and the key to it is the book And Then There Were None. However, Abigail was just messing with him and the book did nothing to open a secret passage, but Christie’s novel has a lot in common with Abigail.

And There Were None follows eight people who received an unexpected personal invitation to a small, isolated island off the Devon coast. There they learn they have been gathered there by a mystery host, and one by one they are killed in ways that mirror an old rhyme framed and placed in every guest’s room. As it turns out, they are all there as they committed murder but managed to escape justice.

Abigail would be And There Were None’s Wargrave, as the latter used Morris to buy the island and make the arrangements.

Some of Abigail’s characters have similar archetypes to those in And There Were None: Joey (a medic) and Armstrong (a doctor), Frank (a detective) and Blore (a private investigator), and Rickles (a former Marine sniper) and MacArthur (a retired WWI general). Abigail would be And There Were None’s Wargrave, as the latter used Morris to buy the island and make the arrangements, which is what Abigail did through Lambert, and while Wargrave posed as a guest, Abigail faked being an innocent and harmless girl. Unlike And There Were None, however, at the end of Abigail, Joey survived, as did Abigail, while Christie’s title is fulfilled in her novel.

Abigail Shows How Hollywood Can Reinvent Agatha Christie's Murder Mysteries

Abigail Gave A Fun Twist To An Agatha Christie Story

Abigail does it differently as it isn’t a literal adaptation of And There Were None, and instead, it took the premise and made something different.

Agatha Christie’s works have been adapted to the big screen multiple times, and among the most recent examples of direct adaptations of these stories are the Hercule Poirot movies by Kenneth Branagh. However, Abigail does it differently as it isn’t a literal adaptation of And There Were None, and instead, it took the premise and made something different, far from what you find in an Agatha Christie novel. Most importantly, Abigail isn’t a murder mystery, and it took the story out of its genre to place it in another.

The Agatha Christie influence in Abigail is subtle, but for those familiar with And There Were None, the similarities will be quite clear. Abigail herself using the novel to trick Frank is also a bit of foreshadowing, as for a moment, it seemed like Joey wasn’t going to make it out alive, thus almost fulfilling the novel’s title.