I had intending on watching Abigail with a friend before I travel this week. It looked fun, silly, and like your typical Friday night popcorn movie. Boy I was wrong.
On Sunday we celebrated my niece's 7th birthday party, but I was left to clean, decorate, order the cake, pick up the cake, serve the food, wash the dishes etc. It was a goddamn joke, but oh so familiar (why had I expected any different this time?). But nothing really prepared me for when my niece opened up her present from me and said "oh is that it? what else is there?" and when I got out the cake and sang happy birthday, she wore the biggest frown , despite it being the best looking cake from the store. She said "I don't like unicorns anymore" oh of course not, she's obsessed with Pokémon. The girl had had three birthday parties and this was her third cake of the week. Needless to say, but I was not impressed, not with the family, and nor with this behaviour. So when I went to see Abigail, I was looking forward to a vampire ballerina brat being taught a good lesson. Cue maniacal laughter.
We know that a lot of children go through that bratty phase, but I am too familiar with family trauma, beliefs, and values passed down without those people doing the work on themselves, so I had decided then that all efforts will be reduced to a minimum from then on. As I always knew I'd be the artistic queer aunt, who eventually moves away and lives her best life. Abigail was a real fucking treat. I hadn't expected the 18 rating, and that intro got me hooked. It was a fun movie, I wished I'd had some candy with my popcorn too, and I laughed out loud, a lot. I ended up seeing it alone, but really needed some sort of catharsis from my weekend, with my parents returning the same day of the birthday party (hence why it was planned for that day). The gore was much needed, and I loved seeing limbs and bodies exploding.
This was such a refreshing take on the vampire genre, and it got me thinking about Kirsten Dunst's vampire in Interview with a Vampire, who was also such a brat. Perhaps we can look forward to more vampire children in the future. They honestly can't be as bad as human children right? I'm sure Abigail would have appreciated my efforts. Oh and I absolutely LOVED the surprise appearance from one of my favourite actors. That was the icing on the cake.
So if you're fed up with the children in your life, grab a drink, grab your popcorn and go watch Abigail. Order will be restored.
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