Summary

• Abigail combines a heist movie with a classic horror monster and haunted house movie subgenres, promising twists and turns.
• The film takes inspiration from iconic vampire movies like Dracula, Near Dark, and The Lost Boys, reinventing vampire lore.
• The cast of characters in Abigail is compared to a "horror Breakfast Club," offering rewatchability and personalities to identify with.

A group of kidnappers captures a young girl named Abigail and must watch her overnight to collect a $50 million ransom from her father, a powerful underworld figure in Radio Silence's horror comedy, Abigail. However, things take a turn when they discover there is more to the little ballerina than meets the eye. Trapped in a house with a monster they never expected, the kidnappers will do everything they can to survive the night.

Details have been kept under wraps, but directing duo Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett team up again after their wildly successful Scream movies to bring an all-new horror movie to the big screen, but this time they'll be introducing a dastardly new vampire. The movie seems to take inspiration from Ready or Not, but instead of one person being hunted by a group of others, a single monster is hunting a group of people. Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin have brought a talented cast together for Abigail reuniting with Scream star Melissa Barrera for another bloody good time.

Screen Rant interviewed two of the directors of Radio Silence, Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, about their the tantalizing Abigail. Gillett discussed combining a heist movie with a monster and a haunted house movie and putting their spin on vampires. Bettinelli-Olpin broke down the casting process and the unique cast of characters that are forced to come together in Abigail.

Abigail Combines A Heist Movie With Classic Horror Monster & Haunted House Movie Subgenres

While they stayed tight-lipped about Abigail's origins, specifically the theory that she is the daughter of Dracula Bettinelli-Olpin shot it down stating, "That's a bit of an online rumor, the rumor mill doing its thing." Gillett shared his excitement about combining a monster movie with a heist movie ripe with twists and turns.

Tyler Gillett: It was just so inspiring for us to not only get to mash up a heist movie and a monster movie, but to have a character at the center of it who seems to be innocent, helpless, and who is literally anything but, both of those things. It was just so fun. There were so many opportunities for twists and turns and fun sequences and fun character moments. We were just sold from jump.

Abigail seems to not only combine the heist and monster movie subgenre, but the haunted house subgenre of horror plays an important role as well. Setting often plays an important part in horror especially when the majority of the movie takes place in a single location with a haunted house or a home invasion. Abigail taps into that with twists and turns built into every genre that this movie plays with.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: That house that you see is 95% an actual house in Dublin. The way that we've always approached our stuff from back when we were doing really, really small things, just us, was find a location, then adapt the story to the location.

And with this, we found this house, it's called Glenmaroon, and it just inspired the movie in so many ways where we're like, "Okay, well, this can happen here and then that allows us to do X, Y, and Z. Then X, Y, and Z allows us to do this." And so it was kind of an ongoing process. Up until we were almost done shooting, we were still finding new little nooks and crannies.

Tyler Gillett: "What if we did this? Let's go do that here instead."

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Yeah, testament to our production designer. Her and her team, were able to somehow create this hodgepodge, haunted house vibe that's cohesive but timeless, but in different eras. There's a lot of subtlety going on in it that's really cool in the house.

Vampires are one of the most iconic monsters in the horror genre, but as more movies and television series explore these creatures, new elements and lore come into play. While Gillett wouldn't share all the secrets about how Radio Silence made vampires their own in Abigail, he hinted that while some of the classic traits will come into play, others were thrown out completely. This could tie into the larger mystery regarding Abigail's origins and why this group was contracted for this heist.

Tyler Gillett: Some of that stuff we don't want to give away too much, because I think some of the fun of the movie is how we deal with the lore specifically. What things we're loyal to and what things we're just throwing directly out of the window. But I think for us, that was one of the really exciting opportunities to take all the vampire movies that we grew up on, find a way to maybe reinvent some of those rules, and then express them in a way that's just different and very much us.

Abigail Took Inspiration From Dracula & The Lost Boys

While Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are no strangers to original stories, they've been largely living in the Scream world with the latest two installments. The pair have an impressive horror resume, but Abigail is an opportunity to explore monster movies which they have been fans of for years. The pair were excited to bring their unique spin on a vampire story, taking inspiration from Dracula, Near Dark, and From Dusk Till Dawn.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: One of the things that we've talked about a lot is how we love the movies where the villain is the title character, is the thing that everything circles around. So for us, we took our movies we loved, and we grew up on a lot of vampire movies; Near Dark, From Dusk Till Dawn, The Lost Boys, 30 Days of Night, the original Dracula.

And, like Tyler was just saying, we filtered it all through our taste. That was one of the really exciting things about doing an original movie. We were like, "Oh, this doesn't have to be beholden to these things." I think that lineage of those movies informed us that way, where we were like, "Oh yeah, like Lost Boys, Near Dark, and these movies, they're kind of tied, but they're not really." I think there was something very freeing in that. So it's kind of our version of those, which means that it's just our version, which is cool for us.

Although Abigail's potential place in Universal's Monster Universe remains to be seen the movie will bring the same balance of horror, humor, and character-driven story that Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin have become famous for with Scream and Ready of Not. While the line-up of monsters has been fixed for years with the likes of Dracula, Frankenstein, and Wolf Man, Abigail could be the perfect movie to expand Universal's monster-driven horror movies.

Tyler Gillett: We hope that she takes a place at the top. One of the really exciting things for us was that Universal was able to take a chance on a really weird, wacky, bloody, funny, scary, character-filled, emotional ride. Abigail is at the center of that, of all of those flavors. I think we are just feeling so lucky that we've had great partners that trusted that all of that fun stuff could coexist in one movie and that it could be spearheaded by a 13-year-old actress. It's just really, really a good time. We hope she sticks around.

One of the challenges of Abigail is how pivotal the young actress playing the titular monster. Alisha Weir needs to hold her own not only among an impressive cast, but also must largely carry the horror aspect of this movie. Bettinelli-Olpin broke down the casting process knowing that the movie hinged on this character and the young actress' performance.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: We were very nervous, to put it lightly, about casting Abigail because we knew the entire movie hinged on that character and who played her. And when we zoomed with Alisha, she lives in Dublin, which is where we shot, which is completely random, she just was incredible. And I think working with her out there, again, getting there, the fear was, okay, but how's this going to work? We've got all these restrictions, blah, blah, blah.

And then she was maybe one of the most professional people we've ever worked with. And the nicest, sweetest, kindest, just got it, knew exactly what the character was, knew how to turn it on its head and kind of keep evolving it. And so the process was trying, but once we met Alisha, we were like, "Oh, cool. That's such a sigh of relief. Yay, we can move on and actually have fun with this."

Abigail Director Teases An Unexpected Emotionally Nuance Story For The Villainous Monster

The directing duo kept details about Abigail close to the vest, with Bettinelli-Olpin joking, "She's really good at luring people to a secret location to hunt them." However, Gillett did tease a surprising depth the titular monster as well as the other characters. They likely approached this similarly to the characters in Scream and Ready or Not, with not only nuanced performances but intriguing secrets and arcs for each of the characters.

Tyler Gillett: I am going to speak vaguely on it, I don't want to get into spoiler territory, but I think one of the other opportunities and the thing that we took really seriously is that that character isn't just what she superficially seems to be. That's really similar for all the characters in the movie, but we really wanted to treat her as the villain. As a character that has real depth and there's actually something emotional happening in her that you hope and want to be resolved by the end of the movie.

I think that just speaking again to Alisha's talents she understood that under the fun makeup, the fun stunts, and all the wacky action sequences, there's a character that actually has a lot of emotional nuance. That's what people are hopefully going to be pleasantly surprised by, that the fact that she's a ballerina and a vampire is great, but there's also a lot more to unpack, and it only works because of how great Alisha is.

Bettinelli-Olpin also revealed how Weir influenced Abigail's story, notably the concept of a ballerina vampire. The ballerina part has become one of the most well-known elements of the movie and Weir is a huge part of why that is such a prominent part of the movie.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: All of it, a ton. That's not any way to disparage Guy and Steven who wrote it, it's that the dancing was a very, very small texture in the script. Had that texture not been there, we never would've ended up with what we ended up with, but once we met Alisha, found out she was a great dancer, and also a really fast learner, we decided, let's steer into this.

Let's make that much more of the character, let's have a costume change halfway through. Let's really own this. The thing that anyone who knows if they've heard anything about the movie is like, Oh, ballerina, vampire. The ballerina part is like 95% because Alicia could dance. So she really informed the movie in a lot of ways.

Although Gillett and Bettinelli-Olpin have shown an impressive acumen for sequels with the latest Scream installments they explained why their filmmaking mentality isn't built around the expectation of sequels. They revealed that while Abigail could have potential for more, if for no other reason than to reunite the cast, the movie has a conclusive, satisfying ending.

Tyler Gillett: We certainly didn't go into this with [the idea of sequels] in mind. I think that our approach is always to make a movie that feels like a complete thought and that it's not leaving anything on the table or holding back any good ideas for something that might happen down the line.

One of the things that was really intriguing to us about this script is that it did feel like it had a really conclusive end. That doesn't mean that there couldn't be more story to tell, but for the characters specifically in this story, it really feels like it has a satisfying conclusion. What happens next? We certainly would love to work with everybody again, but who knows?

Abigail Features A "Horror Breakfast Club" Cast Of Characters

Bettinelli-Olpin praised how Universal is approaching new Monster movies, notably Invisible Man, by giving the filmmakers the freedom to put their own spin on the story instead of directly remaking the original movie. While he didn't name a specific monster they are interested in tackling next, only teasingly claiming "Wolf-Man." He revealed that they just wrapped filming and are now looking for their next project.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: We love them all. I think we're most excited about how Universal, just as a whole is taking this new approach with Invisible Man and stuff where it's like, let's not try to redo these things, let's give them to people and let them interpret it and do a thing with it, I think that's just really special.

As to something specific, I mean, I don't think we were like, "Oh, I can't wait to do a Vampire movie." Now that we've done it, it was absolutely wonderful, and we would love to. You just never know.

Bettinelli-Olpin revealed that one of the things he's excited to see from audiences after Abigail hits theaters is which character they identify with. He described the cast of characters in Abigail as "horror breakfast club" and Gillett explained how they approach making movies with staying power through rewatchability.

Tyler Gillett: We really hold our feet to the fire with that. Our aim is to always make a movie that you want to put on, on a Sunday morning when you're hungover, and you create something that has real rewatchability. I think that this is hopefully one of those movies for people. We've seen it, I don't know how many times collectively we've now watched the movie, and it still entertains us.

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: Yeah, so many. One of the things that I know, this won't make much sense until people see the movie, but I do think we are genuinely excited to see the reaction. We joked a lot that the cast of characters, it's like a horror breakfast club where none of these people belong together. I think it's going to be really fun to see when you watch it, who you identify with, because there's something for everybody.

I think I always love movies like that. You always love movies like that. So to get to do something where you're like, Oh, everybody has their own character, and you can kind of pick and choose, I think that'll be a fun little social experiment.

The directing duo also reflected on some of the challenges they faced while making Abigail, including both the WGA and SAAG-AFTRA strikes last year, and the pride they feel towards the cast and crew. Bettinelli-Olpin also noted that he discovered his love of Ireland while making the movie.

Tyler Gillett: I think we've learned that we and the team of people that we bring together are all... And we're really resilient on this one. I think that this movie faced some interesting challenges with the two strikes and the loss of Angus Cloud, and I think that we all came together and still made something that is very much just an expression of how joyful and wonderful the experience of making it was.

I think that that's a lesson, we've learned in certain ways on all of our movies. But I think that there were unique challenges with this one that put us to the test in ways that we maybe weren't anticipating. And I think we're all really proud of the cast and crew for the way that we came together to finish this one out.

About Abigail

After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.

Check out our other Abigail interviews:

• Screen Rant's Abigail set visit
• Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin at WonderCon
• Dan Stevens at CinemaCon
• Melissa Barrera & Alisha Weir
• Tyler Gillett and Matt Betinelli-Opin
• Kathryn Newton and Dan Stevens

Abigail hits theaters on April 19.

Source: Screen Rant Plus