ABIGAIL'S PARTY
SCREAM FILMMAKERS MATT BETTINELLI-OLPIN AND TYLER GILLETT UPDATE AGENRE CLASSIC WITH VAMPIRE MOVIE ABIGAIL
ORIGINALLY ANNOUNCED AS a “secret monster movie for Universal”, internet chatter has new horror Abigail pegged as “a reimagining of the 1936 Universal Classic Monsters film Dracula’s Daughter”. But directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett say that was just something writer Stephen Shields had “percolating in his head in the early stages”. “To his credit,” Bettinelli-Olpin explains, “he was also thinking really smart about, ‘Okay, how do I tell an original vampire story and also make it something that feels eminently sellable?’ So that was, at one point, its path into the studio. Then for us it was, ‘Well, let’s just make it as weird and as wacky and as different while still playing in the lineage and in the lore of vampires. How do we make this its own unique flavour?’”
The pair then brought Guy Busick – who wrote Ready Or Not, Scream V and Scream VI – on board. “Before you know it, we’re flying out to Dublin to shoot the movie. It was not the way, in our experience, movies usually get made,”
Gillett laughs.
MEAL DEAL
Abigail (Alisha Weir), the daughter of a powerful crime boss, is being held for a $50 million ransom. The tables are turned when the kidnappers become food for their hostage, as the girl in the ballerina costume is actually a vampire…
The directors are lifelong fans of horror. For Bettinelli-Olpin it was seeing the likes of Predator, Alien and The Terminator “really young”, for Gillett the original Twilight Zone, “The best TV show of all time, period.” A full-size mannequin dressed as Ghostface looms behind them as they speak to SFX. Despite the movie monster heritage, Abigail meant that having to play by a specific set of rules (as with their Scream films) wasn’t necessary.
“It was an original idea that allowed us to make an original movie,” Gillett explains. “To the studio’s credit they really pushed us to be interesting, weird, experimental, go for it, take the big swings, have fun with this – and that’s our sweet spot. That’s what we love. So it just all kind of lined up.”
Those big swings included the freedom to explore film history in unexpected ways. “Honestly, we thought that they did or might have a rule book,” Bettinelli-Olpin says of Universal’s legacy. “We were pleasantly surprised that they were like, ‘Guys, just go do weird stuff. The weirder, the better. We don’t want you to be servicing any idea of what something might be down the line.’ They just wanted us to make the best version of an original vampire movie in the moment, throwing caution to the wind. It’s really rare that you find partners that are as willing to do that, that are not afraid to take risks. It’s been a really w
