It would sound counter-intuitive to be advised not to watch the trailer for the film Abigail (2024), but it sure is the safest way to not have the film totally ruined for you. With that said, I was very confused if I actually watched the film from the back of my TV, because it cannot be the same film everyone watched and most people have acclaimed.
I used to enjoy the horror genre. The thrills that come with it can be, say, usually electrifying, although mixed with terror and disgust sometimes.
The Wrong Turn series and one of the Jigsaw films I saw as a kid, for example, gave me chills in my bones then—and I loved that they did, although I had weird nightmares sometimes. As I grew, however, I enjoyed the genre less with time. I realised that the storylines built around them in recent times were mostly unoriginal.
Abigail is a horror film that has yet another vampire story with a slightly different concept this time. My partner, whom I wondered when she suddenly became interested in the genre or anything remotely related, suggested we "see what the buzz was about" and enjoy the film for ourselves. And there we found ourselves before something that had us confused and appalled.
A group of would-be criminals kidnaps the 12-year-old daughter of a powerful underworld figure. Holding her for ransom in an isolated mansion, their plan starts to unravel when they discover their young captive is actually a bloodthirsty vampire. Google
I only watched the trailer after the film, but even when I did, I was glad that I didn't. If you have seen the trailer, then you have seen more than half of the film, and so the entire film is pointless. And since I didn't watch the trailer, I genuinely enjoyed the film in the beginning.
The storyline went from crime to horror and then to comedy. And not the funny comedy. If the film had stuck with the crime part till the end, it may have been alright. But the 1 hour and 40 minutes I spent in this film felt so long.
I think that the film's biggest flaw was the discrepancies in its plot, followed by its second biggest flaw, the dialogue. For example, I really couldn't tell whether it was daytime or nighttime in the film. Either we went from 3:30 a.m. to the scorching sun at 1:00 p.m. to nighttime in one hour of the film's real time or the sun only shines through one window in one part of the house...at night.
So many things didn't make sense to me. Since when did vampires start to fly? Or when did they begin to move faster than light? Say, it's what the film wanted to portray; where did all that power go when it would have made the most sense to be used? And whose idea was it to make vampires instantly implode in sunlight, and why was that idea not handy to the victims at several points? These really aren't spoilers because you'll find them in the trailer alone.
Motive, reasoning, and logic appear to have taken a back seat in this film. The characters made choices that normally wouldn't make sense, especially in terms of survival. At a point, I really just wanted to see how far and terrible it could get. And then I saw a woman thrown around, through walls and wood, with a stake to her shoulder at some point, walk out and drive like all that never happened. Oh, and she even fought another vampire in that condition.
I can go on and on to berate the film, but I'd rather not relive every single disappointment. It was only very surprising to see so many reviews applauding it. I guess we all have our perspectives after all. Thankfully, I didn't watch it alone, and my partner thought the same at every point in time I did. Soon enough, in fact, we started to laugh.
I think the ballerina vampire thing was creative, though. Coupled with the eerie-sounding soundtrack, perhaps this film could have been a true scare with plausible logic to at least keep it realistic and enjoyable. It is what it is anyway. It's a 3/10 for me. By the way, it has a lot of gore.