Film Review: Ireland's Alisha Weir is no ordinary young actor in Abigail

Alisha Weir in Abigail (2024). Source: Imdb

• Abigail
• ★★★☆☆
• Cinema release

Abigail (16s) begins with a gang of kidnappers – among them Sammy (Kathryn Newton), Frank (Dan Stevens) and Joey (Melissa Barrera) – abducting the young Abigail (Alisha Weir) from her family home.

The plan to demand a cool $50 million ransom from her father soon goes sideways when they learn that he’s the fearsome crime lord Christophe Lazar (Matthew Goode), although the gang aren’t holed up for very long in the gothic mansion they’ve picked as a hideaway when they realise that their captive is by no means your typical ballet-loving pre-teen… 

Directors Matt Bettinelli and Tyler Gillet previously directed the fun horror-thriller Ready or Not (2019), but while Abigail starts out strong – and particularly given a superb performance from young Alisha Weir as the ominously self-assured child hostage – it starts to lose its way around the midway point, when its flashes of knowing genre pastiche are drowned by buckets of gore and blood.

Kathryn Newton is suitably wacky as a wannabe Harley Quinn, and Dan Stevens carries a real sense of threat as the amoral Frank, but only Melissa Barrera retains her dignity as proceedings eventually descend into farce.