Film Review

Abigail (2024) — good production and performances drowned in splatter-horror

After criminals kidnap the ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, they retreat to a mansion, unaware they’re locked inside with no normal little girl…

Abigail is an entry in Universal Pictures’ tribute to its monster-verse classics from the 1930s to the 1950s. Those films were a sometimes-wonderful series of works that began with Dracula (1931) and included some genuinely great films, amongst them Frankenstein (1931), The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), The Son of Frankenstein (1939), and The Wolf Man (1941).

The film’s producers claim their inspiration came from the lesser-known Dracula’s Daughter (1936), the most obscure and suggestive film in the Universal horror canon (due, in part, to its underlying lesbian theme, which necessitated camouflage from the censors of the day). Abigail, though it’s about a vampire’s daughter, is a world away from that.

This film isn’t out to be a creepy movie depicting uncanny events. It’s a full-on…