Universal Pictures Makes Monsters the Right Way

Just before the weekend, Universal Pictures finally pulled back the curtain on the mysterious horror movie from the filmmaking duo radio silence.The resulting film is Abigail, See Melissa Barrera Dan Stevens is the protagonist of a team of kidnappers who kidnap a child for ransom. Turning point?The titular Abigail, played by Alisa Weir, is actually a vampire, and now they’re both vampires Totally screwed up.

Turning the monster into a 12-year-old girl is a neat little twist, and the movie seems to know how much fun it can have with this premise. It’s not every day that a kid in a horror movie gets to unleash himself and become a little freak whose homicidal tendencies are a trait rather than a flaw. At one point she dances with a headless corpse, clearly relishing the opportunity to mingle with these people and use her to make a quick buck. It’s funny to see the criminals immediately realize they have to kill a child to survive the night. Not every movie can have Dan Stevens shoot a 12-year-old in the head, but this one does it and makes no apologies for it.

Abigail Follow the 2020 invisible Man and last year’s Renfield and Demeter’s final voyage, All About the Modern Spin on Iconic Monsters Universal Pictures is semi-dominant with its Universal Monsters franchise. 2017’s Dark Universe attempt crashed immediately upon release mummy After the reboot, Universal let the monsters slumber for a few years.Then there’s Revonard’s invisible Man The reboot decided to update the property, centering on an abuse survivor whose ex is stalking her with a fancy tech suit. This angle brings a rather dark edge to the “monster” part of the Universal brand, which in turn makes it all the more satisfying when he finally gets what he wants.

in turn, Demeter Not modern, in fact based directly on a chapter by Bram Stoker Dracula novel. But it’s playing with an established horror character in a similar space. Its Dracula is a little bastard who takes his time to check on the crew of the titular ship.He has no qualms about bullying children and he clearly relishes the opportunity to molest them Corey Hawkins‘The only surviving character from a potential sequel. It’s a shame these will never come to light, as Dracula lurking in London would provide ample opportunity to play out the niggling aspects of the character that are primarily meant for Hawkins in the climax.Although I haven’t seen it yet renfield, It’s hard not to know that this is a vehicle for Nicolas Cage to play Drac, but also to see the character through the eyes of his long-suffering manservant who finally decides to try his hand at existing on the outside. His master.

The lack of franchise obligations gave these characters new life at Universal Pictures.Instead, this approach seems similar to how it and Blumhouse handle similar problems M3GAN and halloween: Make them scared or I’m Renfield’s situations, try to make them interesting. While Universal certainly hopes some of these films will get a sequel or two, the studio isn’t going out of its way to force that to happen. It should end up looking like this: Demeter It didn’t perform well, but that didn’t hurt anything and it was considered a solid film that deserved more attention.no hit M3GAN virality levelbut its status as a “Dracula on board” movie helps it stand out from the other incarnations of the character that have emerged over the past decade.

With any luck, Abigail Doesn’t try to put himself in the same world as Whannell’s coming one werewolf Restart Or a new invisible man. It looks like it’ll be able to stand on its own two vampire feet without teasing any future guest stars. Honestly, can they really have the gonzo energy of a preteen doing a twirl before biting someone’s throat out?

Abigail Opens in theaters on April 19.

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