Look Out For The Little Guy!

This morning, Rachel and I exchanged Valentine's Day presents and cards. She had very kindly got me the superb Ant-Man trilogy on Blu-Ray and a pack of Colin & Connie The Caterpillar mini rolls for us to share.

Her wheelie bin-themed card was a stroke of genius as she is always mocking me for my obsession with ensuring the right rubbish bins are out on the right morning. And, of course, today not only happens to be Valentine's Day but it's also green bin day... so winner!

I gave Rachel a mushy card, a pair of biographical novels (Cilka's Journey and The Tattooist of Auschwitz) about life in Nazi concentration camps (not very romantic-sounding, but the genre interests Rachel) and a handbag that she'd been after for a while.

Colin (left) and Mister Mind (right)

While tidying all this up from the dining room table so Rachel could resume her work day, I noticed that Colin The Caterpillar bears more than a passing resemblance to my favourite classic Captain Marvel comic book villain, Mister Mind.

Coincidence, separated at birth, or secret identity blown?

You decide...

Abigail (2024)

A sextet of professional criminals are hired to kidnap the daughter of a wealthy businessman and hold her hostage while their 'go-between' sorts out the $50 million ransom demand.

The criminals are a mixed bag, all unknown to each other and chosen for their special skills: medic Joey (Melissa Barrera, from the recent Scream movies); ex-cop Frank (Dan Stevens, of Legion fame and many other works); hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton, from Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania); muscle Peter (Kevin Durand, another genre staple, most recently mo-capping as Proximus in Kingdom of The Planet of The Apes); sniper Rickles (Will Catlett, from the underrated TV series Constellation); and driver Dean (the late Angus Cloud in his last live-action performance).

When they suss out that the 12-year-old ballerina, Abigail (Alisha Weir, from Matilda: The Musical) that they've grabbed is actually the daughter of a legendary underworld bogeyman, the Keyser Söze-like Kristof Lazaar, the hardened villains start to go to pieces.

Matters get worse when they realise that the isolated mansion that their contact, Lambert (The Mandalorian's Giancarolo Esposito), has sent them to seems to be designed to keep them in... rather than keep out anyone sent to rescue Abigail.

Then the gang's problems escalate as they start getting killed off one-by-one and the survivors come to understand that their hostage is actually an extremely dangerous - and old - vampire... not a small child!

And they are her prey.

Directed by horror legends Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett (aka Radio Silence), who brought us the last two Scream movies and the wonderful Ready or Not, Abigail is glorious, blood-splattered cocktail mixing Reservoir Dogs and The Usual Suspects with Dusk Till Dawn.

Crime caper meets creature feature horror, with Grand Guignol results.

Following Tarantino's Dusk Till Dawn formula, the charismatic 'bad guys' pull off their kidnapping cleanly and are then find themselves trapped in a confined space with a monster even more dangerous than their own dark sides.

Extremely violent and gory, humorous, and action-packed, this 109-minute movie is so well-paced that you don't feel its duration in the slightest.

Even with a limited cast to kill off in true 'spam in a cabin' style, and an obvious 'final girl' from the get-go, the Radio Silence duo wring every bit of brilliance out of the script by their frequent collaborator Guy Busick and Stephen Shields.

The only slight slip-up, for me, in the whole production was - during the final sequence - the directors didn't seem able to decide whether it was night or day outside (which, when you're talking vampires, can be quite key). 

However, that minor glitch aside, I absolutely loved this monster movie.

A strong contender for my "film of the year" so far, Abigail also definitely feels like it has great sequel (even maybe a franchise) potential.