Abigail turns Let the Right One In into a frenetic horror comedy

polygon.com:

Vampires are some of our most malleable monsters. They can be lonely kids, lonely teens, misunderstood lovers, mass murderers, leather-clad drifters, regular dudes, or just about anything in between. All that flexibility (and the ability, often, to pass as human) means vampires can also come as a complete surprise to both audiences and the characters in the movies themselves, waiting until more than halfway through a movie before they really sink their teeth in. That special and narrow niche of surprise vampire movies, like From Dusk Till Dawnor A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, is the exact landing point for Abigail, the hilarious new action-horror movie from the directors of Ready or Not.

Eventually, as the trailers show, Abigail is about a ballerina assassin who also happens to be a vampire. But the movie starts out by playing its crime story straight. A group of criminals, each named after a member of the Rat Pack, kidnaps the daughter of someone rich. All they have to do to get their $50 million payout is keep the girl locked in a mansion for 24 hours. As it turns out, the girl’s father is one of the most dangerous crime bosses around, and he’s known for dealing harshly with people who wrong him. And that’s where the child vampire comes in.

I’d be reticent about even mentioning the vampire in this movie if it wasn’t such a central thrust of the movie’s marketing. Coming in without expecting any bloodsucking would be a fantastic treat, and it’s clearly one directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett had in mind. After they play their crime angle straight for the first half, they treat the vampire reveal like a shocking twist, with absolutely hilarious reactions from the entire cast, followed by a knowing conversation between them about what they each remember about vampire-killing lore. The good news, though, is that even with the surprise blown in the trailer (and even in the trailer’s official thumbnail!), Abigail is still a blast.

Once Abigail