Abigail review: This tale of a vampire ballerina can keep you entertained if you like creepy capers
ABIGAIL
(18) 109mins
★★★☆☆
SOMETIMES, halfway through a horror film, it can feel as though it has bitten off more than it can chew.
A wacky concept mixed with relentless gore can feel a little flat 60 minutes in.
That is how a ballerina vampire thriller feels. And yes, you read that right.
Starting out is a group of highly trained criminals employed to kidnap a young girl, Abigail, whose father has great wealth.
She is an excellent ballerina and we first meet her performing Swan Lake to an empty theatre.
She is pale-faced, in a tutu. That mixed with the chilling music of the Swan Theme makes it instantly creepy.
Grotesque
The gang, who do not know each other and have been offered seven million dollars each to swipe the kid, are soon sent to a deserted spooky manor house with Abigail tied up in a bag.
There, they chain up Abigail (played by Matilda The Musical star, Alisha Weir) and take advantage of the free booze and snooker table in the creepy venue.
The kidnappers include the sometimes-goody-sometimes-baddy Acteur (Downton Abbey’s Dan Stevens once again playing an American), the mother of the group Joey (Melissa Barrera), tech whizz kid Sammy (Kathryn Newton) and the drugged-up driver Dean (the late Angus Cloud).
But things soon start going bump in the night, with the group slowly getting picked off in the most grotesque and mysterious ways.
The true horror starts when they realise what they are dealing with in the form of alleged 12-year-old Abigail.
This isn’t her first rodeo having to stand up for herself. And in a locked up, dark mansion, there is very few places to hide.
There is gallons of blood in this silly and sick film that tries to stay amusing while ripping people to shreds.
You can’t stay mad at Abigail, who is performed well by Weir — a far cry from her sweet-singing turn in the Roald Dahl film.
In fact, you want her to win. The gang of grown-ups being paid to steal her are quite annoying and you will feel no loss at their demise.
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, who has worked on the Scream franchise, more could be done with the characters and dialogue to make you feel more excited or, in fact, scared.
But if you enjoy some creepy capers with a demonic child and lashings of the red stuff, this looks good enough on the big screen to keep you amused.
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THE BOOK OF CLARENCE
(15) 129mins
★★☆☆☆
AFTER scoring a top spot on the Netflix streaming charts with hip-hop western The Harder They Fall, British musician-turned-filmmaker Jeymes Samuel returns with a parody of the biblical epic.
We are in Jerusalem, AD 33 – where “ungodly herb” dealer Clarence (LaKeith Stanfield) hatches madcap schemes to pay off a local crimelord (Eric Kofi-Abrefa).
Inspired by the success of Jesus, he decides to raise shekels by entering the messiah business.
Clarence (who is the twin brother of the apostle Thomas, also played by Stanfield) is a non-believer but has the guile and the charm to wow crowds by resurrecting corpses and healing overacting cripples.
The jokes are pretty lame but the unhinged first half is endearingly unpredictable.
Samuel treats us to a street chariot race, a 1st-century disco and cameos from James McAvoy, David Oyelowo and Benedict Cumberbatch.
For a while, it plays like a messier, funkier The Life Of Brian.
Then we bear witness to the miracles of the actual messiah (Nicholas Pinnock), Clarence finds God and an anarchic comedy transforms into double RE.
ANDY LEA
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SOMETIMES I THINK ABOUT DYING
(12A) 91mins
★★★☆☆
WHEN your lead character is very depressed and subdued, it can be difficult not to make a film that shares those traits.
Director Rachel Lambert tries her best with this story of Fran (Daisy Ridley), an office worker who lives in a coastal Oregon town and feels her least miserable when she’s silently filling in spreadsheets.
She’s surrounded by all the usual characters in a traditional office, from the overly friendly to the quirky to the slightly bitter and boring.
But Fran is just, well, nothing. She wears beige, barely speaks and eats her dinner of cottage cheese every night standing up.
She regularly envisions her own death, daydreaming about it in an almost romantic way.
When new colleague Robert (Dave Merheje) tries to bring her out of her shell, there is hope.
But after one date to the cinema where Fran declares she doesn’t like the film and replies “I don’t know” to most of his questions, his loss of interest is understandable.
Because as much as I longed to get to know Fran in this well-made indie flick, it ended up feeling that perhaps there’s just not much to discover.