Young ballerina vampire ‛Abigail’ tiptoes with bloody mayhem
Kathryn Newton, who starred in “Lisa Frankenstein” and “Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania,” is up against a young hungry ballerina vampire in “Abigail” with Alisha Weir (“Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical”) in the titular role for the latest horror hors d’
“Abigail” begins with a highstakes heist, a dangerous mission that, if all goes according to plan, could net six strangers a staggering $50 million. Newton’s character, a hacker named Sammy, is recruited by a sinister fixer along with a ragtag group of strangers that includes a driver, sniper, medic, muscle and the thin man, aka head of ops.
Their real identities are kept secret from each other as a kind of insurance – should one of them be caught, that person would be unable to implicate her or his co-conspirators. Together, they must infiltrate the well-appointed home of a reclusive kingpin who presides over a vast criminal empire. After sedating and abducting his pre-teen ballerina daughter, Abigail, they must safely transport the girl back to a remote mansion, then settle in to wait for the sun to rise and the cash to turn up.
“We thought it was such a fun mashing up of different ideas,” says co-director Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, who directs the film with Tyler Gillett. “It feels like a heist movie that’s really intimate and character-driven, and it gets hijacked by a vampire movie. We also thought that the character of Abigail, this little girl who you have a lot of sympathy for in the first half of the movie, when she becomes the villain, there’s hopefully some catharsis in that. You want to see her kick everyone’s ass.”
For Weir, who went from playing the lovable Matilda in “Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical” to a blood-thirsty young ballerina-vampire, the moments when she was channeling the monster Abigail were the ones she loved best.
“What really excited me was getting to wear the teeth and all the blood everywhere,” she shares. “Getting to transfer myself into a vampire was a completely different mindset. You’re not just changing to a different person – you’re changing to a different species. When I had those scenes where I’m killing everyone and I’m enjoying it, I just had to really get into it. I was no one else. I was only Abigail. I was only the vampire.”
As for Newton, who was most recently seen in the horror-comedy “Lisa Frankenstein,” she says that “Abigail” put her through her paces, requiring her at one point to swim through a pool filled with fake blood and lifelike silicone body parts. Still, she says she was thrilled to add an irreverent vampire flick to her growing résumé. “I wanted to be a part of that lore,” Newton says. “To add this to my encyclopedia of horror films, it was time."
“Abigail” also stars Melissa Barrera (“Scream” franchise, “In the Heights”), Dan Stevens (“Gaslit,” “Legion”), William Catlett (“Black Lightning,” “True Story”), Kevin Durand (“Resident Evil: Retribution,” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) and Angus Cloud (“Euphoria,” “North Hollywood”) as the kidnappers and Giancarlo Esposito (“Breaking Bad,” ”Better Call Saul,” “The Mandalorian”) as the mastermind.
Fangs out and get ready for a bloody time at the cinemas when “Abigail” opens April 17 in Philippine cinemas.