Rent Abigail (2024)

Abigail is a Terrifying Scary Tale, as long as you don't look at a poster or watch a trailer..... - Abigail review by Strovey

Abigail is not an original premise, but it must be said it is well made and knows its strengths. The directors Matt Bettinelli and Tyler Gillett and writers Shields and Busick restrict most of the action to an old house that is deserted and full of dark corners to be jumped out from. Basically, a fancy stage play. This means that here they trust their actors and in general this pays off.

The two stand-outs are the strong Dan Stevens who seems to be able to turn his hand to anything and Alisha Weir who for such a young lady really smashes her role out of the park, Kathryn Newton and Kevin Durand are strong enough to hold their own with slightly weaker roles and maybe the slight miscast was Melissa Barrera who perhaps is not a sufficient presence to hold the lead. It really is disappointing that to draw certain eyes she wears the tightest, smallest top with a push-up bra and is in tight jeans. It is the 21st century folks. William Catlett and the late Angus Cloud fill out the cast roster but do not last too long to make too much of an impression, and yes the only black bad-guy does not last very long, honestly, also Angus Cloud’s performance considering his real-life fate was disturbing to say the least and not funny.

One thing that has to be said is the ‘get the screaming youngsters in’ marketing was also disappointing, showing the twist in the tale, which admittedly seemed obvious to me and came fairly early on, in your posters and trailers seems a bit crass and money motivated.

It is fair to say that there were a few twists and turns I did not see coming and the ending, although I would say was stretched out too long (‘less is more’ is a hill I will die on) did surprise me here and there.

The lore of the ‘twist’, which I won’t spoil, seems to be all over the shop with regard to known cinema and literature lore, and being the boorish chap I am I did find it distracting, to the point I actually said ‘no’ out loud a few times.

There are humourous moments dotted throughout the runtime and they are well managed enough to not intrude or be out of place, I particularly found the bookshelf sequence near the end funny.

Overall though Abigail is a good entry in an attempt at an entertaining jump and scare-fest with excessive gore, it keeps your attention with the story and acting even though some parts and ideas seemed to be a tad cheap and easy to do. The previously mentioned ‘sexy clothes’ were not needed and the same character near the end proved to be ridiculously indestructible but at the conclusion of the film I had enjoyed what I saw.

My own opinion is looking at the filmography of Matt Bettinelli and Tyler Gillett who directed this film I would hope that they would move on from the cheap scares, gore-laden horror and move up a scale, making things more challenging and more interesting.

Watching the same style of film over and over again can get a bit wearing, no matter how much you enjoy them.