By admin 
Spoiler Warning: This article contains spoilers for “Abigail.”
In “Talk Horror to Me,” columnist Emma Kexin Wang ’24 discusses horror, psychothrillers and all the scary things released in the past year.
While its pre-teen monstrous girl performs deliberately comedic physical feats in pursuit of their victims, ‘Abigail’ (2024) follows the success of its eponymous predecessor, ‘Megan’ (2023).
That’s where the similarities end. While “Megan” is a surprisingly well-executed film about the current concerns of AI in replacing human labor (in this case, parental labor), “Abigail,” while ultimately an entertaining and inventive gory watch, makes a weak gesture toward female solidarity under patriarchal neglect and violence.
At first, “Abigail” seems like a typical heist movie. Six underground, independent contractors are recruited for a 24-hour operation: they kidnap Abigail (Alisha Weir) and each demand a $50 million ransom from her father. The plot twist? Abigail was the bait, and they are her prey, because they both wronged her father in a previous incident.
The main cast, while actually drawn from a list of horror characters with a sequential order of when they will all be killed, are still endearing in their own way.
Spoiled and dimwitted Sammy (Kathryn Newton) unknowingly brandishes a bag of onions instead of garlic when trying to fend off this pre-teen vampire. Peter (Kevin Durand) is willing to betray the entire group, but comforts Sammy in her time of need. The fake murderer who was murdered Dean (the late Angus Cloud) gets every golden one-liner. The perfectly muscular, logical and calm Rickles (William Catlett) is, in short, the main character’s love interest. Annoying and misogynistic Frank (Dan Stevens) experiences perhaps the most satisfying yet disgusting death.
All of this leaves us with protagonist Joey, played by Melissa Barrera, a long-time horror genre connoisseur. Troubled but extremely observant, Joey fills a Sherlock Holmesian role, with her almost magical ability to read people acting as an introduction to the other generic character types.
But Joey’s perception doesn’t affect Abigail, or at least at first. Confronted with a seemingly helpless little girl she had helped kidnap, Joey is (intentionally) prompted by Abigail to think about her own son, and in an ironically sweet gesture, Pink promises her that she will “never let anyone hurt her.” .
With its rather predictable plot twist, ‘Abigail’ cleverly uses the heist film in the cat-and-mouse chase in the locked mansion. The tension in the first act, then, comes from the discrepancy between the audience’s and the characters’ knowledge: we wait for them to know what we already know, that they were actually the ones kidnapped.
Much of the fun of “Abigail” follows this self-awareness of the slasher genre not to take itself too seriously. The occasional successful jump scares are almost always immediately in visual contrast with Abigail performing a balletic move as she sautés gracefully along the railing.
However, as more horror films with social criticism appear on the scene, ‘Abigail’ makes a perfunctory gesture towards female solidarity. After Abigail reveals her identity to her captors for the first time, she tells them that her father does not care enough about her to give them the ransom even if they successfully capture her. As she spins around killing her father’s enemies in her tutu, Abigail is the ultimate puppet under a powerful man’s political and economic empire.
Ultimately, Joey makes good on her pinky promise. She sees through Abigail’s failed attempts to gain love and attention from her father, and, in a combined effort to save herself and Abigail, becomes the voice through which the film voices the true, hidden villain.
Despite subverting the helpless little girl into a literal monster figure, making Abigail’s name and facing the branding of such horror, the film ultimately recognizes that Abigail still does not have enough power under patriarchal control.
Editor’s Note: This article is a review and contains subjective thoughts, opinions, and criticisms.