Little Dead Flying Blood

Abigail sees a bunch of career criminals locked in a mansion and forced to face off against a little girl ballerina who just happens to also be a centuries old vampire. It's ridiculously over the top and seasoned with lashings of gore but is never quite as much fun as you think it should be.

The film begins with the kidnapping of Abigail (Alisha Weir) by a motley crew of crims led by Dan Stevens and consisting of Melissa Barrera (the main protagonist), Angus Cloud (idiot of the group), Kathryn Newton (rich girl here for kicks), Kevin Durand (big guy) and Will Catlett (ex military guy). They take her to a secluded mansion where Giancarlo Esposito tells them to sit tight for 24 hours while he collects a bounty from the girls wealthy father. Turns out the little girl is actually a vampire and the diminutive bloodsucker soon turns their expected pay day into a fight for survival.

It's a pity Abigail was released at a time when trailers feel they have to spell out exactly what a film is about in order to get bums in seats. Obviously vampire ballerina sells more tickets than mysterious crime film about a kidnapping but the advertising has robbed the movie of one of its best tools. The first act focuses on the group slowly realising they have been set up when Abigail reveals her dad is a feared crime lord who there is zero chance of getting a pay out from and when people start dropping dead they first suspect they are being picked off by a legendary hitman in the employ of the girl's father. A paranoia filled 10-15 minutes about which of the crew is working against the rest could have been one of the most fun sections of the film and would have ended in a killer reveal but with everything laid out by the marketing it just feels like needless filler.

The cast of characters themselves are entertaining enough (especially Stevens and Newton) but a problem arrises when you realise they aren't there simply to get pulled apart but you're actually expected to root for at least one of the child snatchers. Note to film makers, simply saying a character is a parent (especially a dead beat one) doesn't instantly excuse their bad actions. In fact, when said bad actions are drugging and abducting someone else's child it actually makes them seem worse. The failed attempt at garnering empathy really comes home to roost in a muddled ending that needlessly attempts to tie up all the guts and silliness in a feel good message about parenting.

There is still plenty of enjoyment to be had with film. As mentioned above, the characters are pretty entertaining and there are some gory and fun set pieces, particularly an early botched attempt at slaying the diminutive bloodsucker. Speaking of which, Alisha Weir is a superstar. About as far removed from her all singing, all dancing (well all singing anyway) performance in Matilda The Musical as you can imagine she is convincing as the scared victim but absolutely revels in her murderous turn, tormenting her captors turned captives with terrifying glee.

So there is fun to be had but Abigail doesn't quite come together to be more than the sum of its parts and some questionable choices keep it from rising above the reasonably entertaining category.

6 levitating pirouettes out 10

Comments

Icky Ice Cream

Note before the review: It has emerged that generative AI featured in the making of Ice Cream Man and the filmmakers appear to have been less than 100% honest with how much it was used. I have reviewed the film as I saw it and have not taken the way it was made into account. If you (understandably) want nothing to do with a movie that used generative AI then give this one a miss. "The kids have gone fucking insane" screams a father just before his son and daughter, having already mangled his hand in the garbage disposal, set fire to him. How you feel about the idea of that scene pretty much tells you what you will think about the whole of Ice Cream Man, the latest bloodstained offering from gore hound Eli Roth. The premise is a basic one: a quite overtly sinister ice cream man comes to town and, the day after he hands out his freezer based treats, any child who consumed them turns into little murder bots and begin dismembering the local adults. A couple of kids who didn...

Eight is the Loneliest Number of Legs

Spider-Man: Brand New Day swings into cinemas to deliver a much needed box office shot in the arm to the once invincible MCU and prove that the wall crawler is Marvel's most enduring hero. It delivers on the Spiderman feeling but loses steam as the 2 hour 20 minute runtime rolls on. Since everyone he cares about is either dead or has forgotten him after the events of No Way Home, Peter Parker (Tom Holland) has been focusing solely on his Spider-Man duties. As a result, he has more or less eradicated organised crime in New York and is idolised by the city populace. On the downside, he is devoid of real human contact apart from phone calls to a detective and a grudging pseudo-friendship with gun toting vigilante Frank Castle (Jon Bernthal), aka The Punisher. He still pines after his lost relationships with MJ (Zendaya) and Ned (Jacob Batalon) and it seems his isolation is beginning to have a physical effect on him. This couldn't come at a worse time, with a new threat that can s...

Summer of 75

Tony opens with a quote from the late chef, and subject of this semi-biopic, Anthony Bourdain's memoir. It goes: "I was — to be frank — a spoiled, miserable, narcissistic, self-destructive and thoughtless young lout, and badly in need of a good ass-kicking." He's not wrong. The Tony (he's much too cool to let people call him Anthony) we meet at the beginning of the film is an insufferable blowhard. He tells anyone who'll listen about his great future as a writer, despite seemingly having an aversion to doing any actual writing. He assumes the panel awarding a prestigious scholarship is too stupid to see his pitch is nonsense bravado. He condescendingly explains the meaning of what he thinks are obscure words, despite not always knowing himself. While he does change over the course of the film, it's hard to map an actual character journey. That's because more than a biopic or chef's origin story, Tony is a summer vibes hangout movie. The story take...

The Old Man vs The Sea

The Odyssey represents something of an epic journey for director Christopher Nolan himself. Back in 2004 he came close to directing sword and sandals epic Troy before eventually being passed over in favour of the then far more renowned Wolfgang Petersen. Now, an entire Odysseus away from Ithaca length of time later, he brings us his uniquely Nolan take on the next part of Homer's epic works. It's worth the wait as he crams everything he has learned and refined over the last twenty-odd years into his most ambitious project yet. Spoiler for a 3,000 year old poem but the combined Greek army win the Trojan war after a decade long siege thanks to Odysseus (Matt Damon) tricking the Trojans with the famous wooden horse. A series of catastrophes befall him and his crew on the way back to his kingdom of Ithaca, meaning the journey takes him another ten years. Meanwhile his queen, Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Thelemachus (Tom Holland) have to deal with an army of suitors, led by ...

The Menu Serves up a Macabre Treat

The menu is a squid ink black culinary satire that skewers the sycophants and disrespectful tourists that steal the joy from being a high end chef (or any form of artist) while also being a three Michelin star dark comedy and acting as a power fantasy of sorts for those in the service industry. The film centres around Anya Taylor-Joy's Margot as she accompanies potential boyfriend Tyler (Nicholas Hoult) to an island to eat at the most exclusive of restraunts. The restraunt, and indeed whole island, are presided over by Chef Slowik who is idolised by his diners and inspires complete devotion from his cult-like staff. The customers comprise the worst, but all too familiar, "enjoyers" of fine dining. There's a hilariously self-indulgent critic, some wall street bro's there for the bragging rights, a washed up, name dropping celebrity and an ultra rich couple with no appreciation for the privilege they enjoy. Perhaps most ridiculous of all is Tyler himself, a gate ke...

Fortune Favours the Rich

For a comedy, Good Fortune paints one hell of a bleak (and therefore, let's be honest, probably accurate) picture of the current iteration of the American Dream. Money begets money and a life of cold plunges, ridiculously expensive watches and "business meetings" that consist of all expenses paid meals with your mates. Meanwhile, hard work begets nothing but more hard work in a gig economy not even an Angel can help you navigate. Said Angel is Keanu Reeves's Gabriel, a small winged minor deity who is in charge of preventing people from crashing as a result of texting while driving. He is desperate to make a more meaningful impact so, against the instruction of his boss, he decides to try and save a lost soul. He spots Arj (Aziz Ansari), a down on his luck, wannabe documentary maker, scraping by doing odd jobs via apps and sleeping in his car. When Arj is fired by wealthy tech bro Jeff for using the company credit card, he hits rock bottom and Gabriel attempts to inspi...

1 Conflicted Man

Say what you want about some of Clint Eastwood's recent output, the man delivers classic filmmaking and Juror #2 is no different. A cleanly shot and straight to the point courtroom drama about morals and justice, it feels like it could have been made anytime in the last seventy years. Nicholas Hoult plays Justin Kemp, a four years sober alcoholic who is summoned for jury duty. He'd rather be at home with his heavily pregnant wife but is happy to do his duty until a slight wrinkle emerges; a man is on trial for the murder of his girlfriend but Justin may well of killed her in a hit and run a year ago. Knowing the accused is innocent, but not fancying spending the rest of his own life in jail, he tries to convince his fellow jurors to return a not guilty verdict while not implicating himself in the death. A task made harder on both ends by Toni Collette's hotshot prosecutor, determined to land the conviction that will secure her the District Attorney position, and fellow jur...

The Grey Advert

This Russo's action flick has all the ingredients of a top tier spy thriller but will leave you feeling like you've just watched an extended trailer for other films they want to make in the world of the "Grey Man". Ryan Gosling plays Sierra 6 (yes the Sierras are basically 00 agents with the twist they all used to be criminals) and is ideal casting as the sort of ass kicking man of few words this type of film is built around. All the archetypes you would expect are also present and played well by a stellar cast. Chris Evans is unhinged antagonist, Billy Bob Thornton is retired mentor, Rege-Jean Page is crooked politicain and Ana De Armas is the good agent caught in the middle. The plot is just as cookie cutter, involving Gossling being hunted by the people he used to work, computer files nobody was meant to see and hostages needing rescued. Of course, all these things are tropes for a reason and done well (like they are here) equal an enjoyable movie. And the Gre...

Smile for the Cameras

The October horror train continues with Smile 2 , follow up to 2022 breakout hit Smile. Director and writer Parker J. Finn returns with a much more textured character story that is let down by retreading the same beats and half frights as its predecessor. After a brief segment involving Joel from the first movie we focus on pop star Sky Riley (Naomi Scott) as she attempts to mount a comeback a year on from a drug induced car crash that claimed the life of her boyfriend and left her needing extensive surgery. Unable to get strong painkillers due to her addiction problems she visits an old drug dealer friend to procure some Vicodin but when he smashes his own face in with a plate weight she inherits "The Smile" curse. She begins to experience bizarre goings on and people creepily grinning at her as she enters a race against time to discover what's going on and find a way to rid herself of the demon. By far the strongest element of Smile 2 is the character of Sky and the...

Thunderbolts and Lightning, Mental Health is Frightening*

Thunderbolts* takes a bunch of relatively minor MCU characters and scoops them up into a "Suicide Squad" type adventure where they face off against insurmountable odds. Given most of the characters have appeared in TV shows, there is a distinct whiff of Disney+ about proceedings but it is also one of the most solid films Marvel has put out in years. The execs must have known they had something decent on their hands as they waited until a whole weekend after release to spoil the end twist with marketing, as appose to doing it in the trailers. The titular Thunderbolts are : New Black Widow, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh), failed Captain America replacement John Walker (Wyatt Russell), former Winter Soldier turned congressman Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan), Russian super soldier and Yelena's adoptive father Red Guardian (David Harbour), Ant Man 2 alumni Ghost (Hannah John-Kamen) and maybe mysterious newcomer Bob (Lewis Pullman). If you follow MCU events you will recognise ...

Dan Says its Alright

Search This Blog