‘Abigail’ Filmmakers Radio Silence on Their Genre-Hopping Vampire Thriller and Honoring Angus Cloud’s Final Performance
variety.comAdam B. Vary Senior Entertainment Writer The Universal horror movie “Abigail” began as a modern-day twist on “Dracula’s Daughter,” but making a film about the legendary vampire’s blood-sucking scion wasn’t the reason why the filmmaking trio Radio Silence — producer Chad Villella and directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett — wanted to make the project their follow-up to 2022’s “Scream” and 2023’s “Scream VI.” “As freeing as it is to challenge the format of what a ‘Scream’ movie is, you’re playing in a pretty specific sandbox,” Gillett says. “Coming out of ‘Scream VI,’ it was just really clear, like, what if we could take any risk that we felt creatively inspired to take and not have to worry about how it fits into the legacy of a predecessor?” Instead, Radio Silence wanted to return to their roots in original horror, from 2012’s “V/H/S” to 2019’s “Ready or Not.” In “Abigail,” a team of mercenary thieves — played by Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, Angus Cloud and William Catlett — hold who they think is a wealthy bigwig’s daughter (Alisha Weir) for ransom inside a decrepit mansion.
They soon discover that the titular girl is really a vampire and they’ve been trapped as her latest victims, but Dracula’s name isn’t ever spoken, and the script — written by Stephen Shields (“The Hole in the Ground”) and regular Radio Silence collaborator Guy Busick (“Ready or Not” and the “Scream” movies) — has basically nothing to do with “Dracula’s Daughter.” “The hook of Dracula’s daughter sold the idea, but it through a year-plus of development, it just becomes its own thing,” Bettinelli-Olpin says.
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