I wanna see blood and gore and guts and veins in my teeth. Eat dead burnt bodies. I mean Kill. Kill! KILL! If that sounds like your idea of fun then I have the film for you.
The 2024 release “Abigail” The reason I wish to highlight it is I heard that it’s considered a flop and that disappointed me as (for the right viewer) it’s actually a highly entertaining film.
The plot is a bunch of dipsticks kidnap for ransom a young girl with a rich but mysterious father. They are not sure exactly who he is but they are wary of him, he is, they worry, a very, very. very bad man . What they don’t know is the apple does’t fall far from the tree and it’s the daughter they should worry about. ‘
The audience I saw it with seemed to love it and they screamed all the way through. It’s not subtle and it’s not for all tastes with its Evil Dead levels of gore, Bodies are constantly exploding or being ripped apart. Part of its charm is it’s adherence to the cliches of the horror genre. The climax features the “lone surviving girl” and when the characters realise the trouble they are in they actually agree that, “Let’s split up” is a good strategy. It’s cartoonish, chunks of it make no sense and it’s beyond silly but don’t let that deter you.
Other than Giancarlo Esposito the small cast were unknown to me, they are all excellent especially Alisha Weir in the title role who carries the film on her young shoulders. It’s the best performance I’ve seen by a child since Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense. It’s a multi-faceted role and I actually said to someone after we watched it, “How do they find people like that?”
The trailer was TERRIBLE, it gave the whole plot away in the “Bruce Willis was a ghost all along” kind of way I am trying to tiptoe around the core of the film and it’s not easy to make it sound interesting. I can see why they blundered.
So rather than the trailer I will place in the comments a pre-carnage, exposition heavy clip from early in the flick where Abigail is having the situation explained to her. Watching it it’s hard to believe that twenty minutes of screen time later that sweet young girl is going to be screaming at that woman, “You fucking bitch! I’m gunna fucking kill you!” and the woman knows, and the audience knows, that she not only can she probably will.
It’s Halloween and if were a teenage girl who is about to go trick or treating I’d go dressed as Abigail…
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Cookieboy says
Cookieboy says
Sorry about the formating. All the paragraphs just ran together for some reason. The gist of it is “If you like gory horror films watch Abigail.”
Jaygee says
Mel Brooks fans call the film Abi Normal
Sewer Robot says
Surprised the AW didn’t acknowledge the death of Teri Garr. Holds her own in that film alongside several titanic comedic performances..
dai says
I acknowledged it privately. She was wonderful
Max the Dog says
Indeed.
Jaygee says
Greatest British horror film of them all – Ealing Studios’ magnificent Dead of Night.
If you’ve never seen it, you’re in fota trat
Full version here (fingers crossed)
https://www.veoh.com/watch/v87902984jRrcN5AB
Good doc here
Captain Darling says
I saw it recently for the first time, and was very impressed.
The whole set-up was creepy, with the “I’ve dreamed about all of you” or “I’ve foreseen everything that happens tonight” business, and the individual stories were very well done. And as somebody who has always found ventriloquist dummies slightly odd, that bit was very chilling.
Speaking of dummies/puppets (and hopefully not derailing the thread), here’s a masterclass in storytelling from the ace Randy Feltface. His story is both unnerving and very funny.
Gary says
It gets a mention in today’s The Guardian. I wanna see it now, but the version Jaygee posted above doesn’t have subtitles.
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/oct/31/scariest-horror-movie-villains
Vulpes Vulpes says
This twisted tale is downloadable (legit) from Archive DOT org here:
https://archive.org/details/dead-of-night_20210519
I used to wonder if Ray Alan had ever had a recurring dream involving sawdust on the sole of his shoe….
Gary says
Excellent, thanks.
Gary says
I like a little black comedy mixed in with violence, blood and gore. Excellent recent-ish comedy, blood and gore films that I enjoyed very much:
Why Don’t You Just Die? (2018), Harpoon (2019), Villains (2019), The Platform (2019).
I’ll deffo watch Abigail, ta.
Captain Darling says
I haven’t seen any of those, but if it’s blood, gore, and comedy you’re after, Bodies Bodies Bodies might fit the bill. It features bad things happening to bad people, which is always fun.
See also Megan, the one with the AI doll. Not so funny, but certainly a horror film, and one of those that makes you think “How did they do that?”
Gary says
I’ll check them out, ta.
Uncle Wheaty says
I just watched The Visit which my 15 year old daughter downloaded to watch with her friends during a sleepover.
It is rated 14 but the suspense is amazing.
Limited blood and guts though.
Gary says
A good M. Night Shyamalan film? A very rare thing indeed, imho.
Jaygee says
It’s been downhill all the way since his screenplay for Stuart Little
retropath2 says
Well, Mrs Path and I just paid £4.99 and watched Abigail. And I guess @cookieboy did warn us all. Shoddy tosh, all in all. The Evil Dead is indeed a reasonable comparator, probably Evil Dead 9 or somewhere similarly far down the franchise, but even that would be Battleship Potemkin in a direct head to head. That’s an hour and a half I won’t see again.
Cookieboy says
I’ve seen a bunch of horror movies in the cinema fairly recently, The First Omen, Longlegs, A Quiet Place Day One, Alien Romulus and Abigail is the only one I would watch again, or ever recommend to others. It’s not great art but I doubt anyone making it thought it was unlike the others I mentioned just now. That is probably why I found it endearing.