Director by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett
Written by Stephen Shields and Guy Busick

After a group of criminals kidnap the ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, they retreat to an isolated mansion, unaware that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl. (IMDB)

***warning – some mild spoilers***

Caught up with Abigail recently after putting it off for a while as I kept hearing mixed reviews. Well, that will teach me to disobey one of my own rules of not listening to what other people say! I had a great time with Abigail – well better that than the poor souls who kidnapped her not knowing what they were getting into.

After kidnapping Abigail, daughter of a millionaire, a group of desperate fuck-ups just have to baby-sit her for 24 hours but things go very wrong just two hours into the job as Abigail ominously apologises to one of her captors for what is going to happen to them.

Abigail is like a cross between Resident Evil and Alien with a 12 year old girl and it’s just as much fun as that sounds. A good cast, lots of blood and guts and mostly hapless victims, what is not to like?

Alisha Weir puts in a great performance as Abigail and looks like she was having as much fun as we were watching it. The rest of the cast is great and, while the characters are largely stereotypes, that is exactly what we want in a film like this so we can pretend we know who is going to live or die and then get upset when it doesn’t go our way. Actually, you will probably work out who gets to survive fairly early on, but it’s fun getting to that point and Abigail still had a few cheeky twists and plenty of set pieces to keep genre fans happy.

I really enjoyed Abigail and would definitely recommend it. At just 10 minutes shy of 2 hours, it is longer than the usual horror “sweet-spot” in terms of running time, but it never felt laboured or overlong; I would happily have watched a longer moview with Abigail or, and you can send me the royalties, how about a prequel series following Abigail’s side-hustle as a mob enforcer? There is potential for a sequel and I would be up for that!

Abigail is currently streaming on Amazon