Try to kidnap Dracula’s daughter? Big mistake

Film Abigail 18 cert, 109 min ★★★★★

Dir Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

Starring Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Alisha Weir, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, Angus Cloud, William Catlett, Giancarlo Esposito

Matilda’s Alisha Weir is an absolute force in Abigail – a force of darkness, on this occasion, though you’d never know it from her pirouetting on stage to Swan Lake as the film begins. The prim ballerina of the title, who is the pampered darling of a daddy we don’t meet, gets chauffeured home, only to be violently kidnapped by a sextet of hard-bitten criminals out for millions in ransom money.

Big mistake. The “safe” house her abductors get is a fortified castle, only with a pool table and fully stocked bar. Long before realising it’s a trap, they’re on edge; with none previously acquainted, they use the names of the Rat Pack to avoid spilling their identities.

“Joey” (Melissa Barrera) sizes them all up in seconds, deducing that “Frank” (Dan Stevens) is a vicious ex-cop who’s gone rogue, while “Sammy” (Kathryn Newton) is a rich girl only in it for the kicks.

Those kicks, in this horrorthriller mash-up, prove bloodier than anyone bargained for. The directors, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, made the last two Scream films, with the resilient Barrera following them along. Vampire lore could have been just another excuse for irksome meta japery, but it’s almost an hour until the v-word is even required.

This is the directors’ best film since Ready Or Not (2019). It knows its audience and doesn’t waste time. It heightens the fun with elaborate practical effects, rather than blitzing us with eye-tiring CGI any more than it must.

The actors make the most of their stock turns, but the wicked fillip is watching Weir, who is no one’s whimpering hostage, go ballistic. Abigail’s lethal ballet moves, daintily stepping along banisters before spinning in the direction of someone’s throat, outdo even the much-memed kills in the robot-doll thriller M3gan.

Weir proves more than up to the challenge of a long, taunting, Hannibal Lecter-like monologue while imprisoned in a cage. There’s no keeping her behind bars, though. Screaming, swearing, unleashing a feral malice that really hits the spot, she’s so good it’s alarming. If you could even accuse her of having had an “ingratiating moppet” phase, this devious romp just drove a stake right through it.

In cinemas now

Feral malice: Alisha Weir’s Abigail goes ballistic at Kathryn Newton’s Sammy