Universal Pictures’ latest horror film Abigail For those who missed it in theaters or wanted to wait for a night of scary movies, it’s now available to watch on-demand at home. Directed by Radio Silence filmmakers Tyler Gillette and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, the romp of a kidnapped vampire ballerina is bloody madness. It’s an effortless ride and should be added to your watchlist.
The directors recently sat down with io9 to discuss reinventing the Universal Monsters legend and working with a killer ensemble that includes: Alisha Weir (matilda) Play the role of ballerina vampire Abigail with a motley crew of robbers led by Melissa Barrera (scream). The cast also includes Dan Stevens (godzilla x kong), kathryn newton (lisa frankenstein), Giancarlo Esposito (the mandalorian), Angus Cloud (euphoria), William Catlett (black lightning), Kevin Durand (kingdom of the planet of the apes). I mentioned a few spoilers, but for those who haven’t seen the movie yet, here’s a warning in advance.
Sabina Graves, io9: When it was announced that there was going to be an as-yet-untitled Universal Monsters movie, I thought, “What’s this going to be like?” What was the process like with Universal? Do they have a Universal Monsters Bible with all the classic mythology in the canon? Did they review different parts of the IP? And what was the final Why did you settle on the Dracula’s Daughter yarn as a springboard for doing your own thing?
Tyler Gillette: What we learned in the early stages of Universal is that they value and love very special monsters and their characteristics, but at the same time they take a new approach and change what the classic monsters are. They were very interested and excited about the challenge.Even before we started dating Abigail we went to the pitch black lagoon creatures When we watch a movie, we say, “Look, we love the original story. [different] The version of it is not shape of water. So I’d like to suggest something to you that is probably inspired by: [Creature]” We pitched this original movie that ended up containing adjacent ideas, but with a whole new creature. They were like, “Yes, we love that and we love that monster.” So, I’m saying this to express how interested and excited they are about creative ideas.
So while we were writing it, this script abigail’s kidnapping Universal already had one at the time. It was really the idea of what we actually made that was at the heart of it. It’s a heist movie hijacked by a vampire movie. This was just another example of the studio loving the world of these monsters, but trying to find new ways to tap into their legends. Throughout the process, Universal led us to the most original, fun and interesting version of what the movie and its monsters could be.
io9: My favorite scenes involve introducing the ensemble cast. Everyone worked really hard. I really liked that Melissa Barrera, who plays Joey, read it in a very Hitchcockian way. Can you talk about the casting of the film and her ongoing collaboration with Melissa?
Matt Bettinelli-Olpin: That scene was the first day we shot it, so I’m really happy that you liked it. We were just starting to meet everyone and get to know them and get to know each other. This was kind of a run and gun for us.A few weeks later we were on a plane scream 6 They came out and we were casting as we went along. And Melissa was the first piece of that puzzle. Because one of the things we loved about this script was that the characters were unknown by design. All the actors brought a ton of ideas and a ton of contributions to how their characters ended up.On set, we told a lot of jokes as if we were making them up. breakfast club, But it’s a horror movie. Even though they’re bad, you fall in love with them and the first thing they do is kidnap a 12-year-old. But there’s a great deal of humanity in all of them, even if they’re complete assholes. I think there’s something about this alchemy that makes me feel really lucky with this cast.
Gillette: Yeah. I think you’re specifically talking about the scene where Joey calls out to everyone. We always say that those scenes are where the movie casts its spell on the audience. It features real characters and is a truly amazing, dynamic story between strange and eccentric people.
io9: Indeed. And I think that kind of sets the tone to make these characters’ very violent and humorous moments more realistic and effective.
Gillette: So, thank you for saying that. I think it’s easy to say, “Okay, let’s get down to vampire stories,” but it doesn’t work if you don’t spend your time falling in love with people who are in danger. Even if they’re not, even if they’re anti-heroes and they’re all morally bankrupt, you care about them and no matter what happens to them, that’s why that part of the movie works. is.
Bettinelli-Olpin: That was something we talked about a lot—alien as a structure for us to follow. His is one of our favorite scenes from the movie for both Tyler and I. alien, any movie, when they sit around a table and talk, and you get to know these people. Being able to even remotely emulate the idea of “let’s put the characters at the forefront of this movie” was both very appealing and scary to us.
io9: Did you ever feel like you didn’t want the trailer to reveal that the monster was a vampire ballerina? A lot of people said, “Why did you let that go?” Of course, it may not be up to you. Or did you think that that reaction to the vampire ballerina was what would appeal to people?
Gillette: I think like with any movie, there’s always that sliding door moment where you’re like, “What’s the marketing going to be for this version, and how is it going to play out?” We knew that Alisha’s (Weir) bloody costume was going to be very iconic, so we had no choice but to use it. There was no faster way to promote the tone and crazy absurdity of this movie than with that image. It seemed obvious that this would be the most sticky. And I think what that ultimately meant was that it was our job to twist all the scenes that came before and after that. If you’ve seen this and seen it in the trailer, it’s not necessarily a twist — it’s something that’s really important and interesting and essential to the story.
io9: wonderful. And I’m going to touch on a big spoiler here. He definitely thought to himself that Dan Stevens was going to play Dracula or his father. And when Matthew Goode appears as the father at the end, it was hilarious to watch him. downton abbey Connection. Was that on purpose? But what also made Matthew Goode the perfect choice for the character can we see if it’s Dracula?
Gillette: Previous drafts of the script identify him as Dracula.
Bettinelli-Olpin: We ultimately decided that we didn’t want to emphasize that much detail and it just didn’t fit the story we were trying to tell. But still, we wanted the father to come in and have a lot of grace, but also a lot of dignity. As a character built as this mythical crime boss, we had to cram a lot into a very short amount of time. And for us, I think Matthew achieved exactly that goal of his. Because he’s very elegant, very classy, but also scary and a little weird. And it all comes through in a very rational way, the way he enters the scene. He can accomplish so much in such a short period of time.And the fact that we have two downton abbey Everyone was an afterthought. It was like, “Okay, that’s kind of interesting.”how downton abigail Isn’t it made? But Matthew came along and even though we only shot for one day, he was amazing and it was a real honor to work with him.
io9: Yes, and I was still happy to see Dan as a vampire. near dark The vibe of Severen (Bill Paxton’s character).
Gillette: When we were filming that scene, I mean. [Stevens’] Revealing Lambert’s Post [Giancarlo Esposito’s character]With the explosion, we felt like we were full. near dark I couldn’t help but love this. But it’s something that you think, “Oh, it’s a big influence on us,” and we couldn’t help but respect it in some way.
Bettinelli-Olpin: Once Blood turned his glasses into sunglasses, we were basically like, “Oh, here we are.” close to darkness, we have arrived. ”
Abigail is now available to own or rent digitally from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.
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