Abigail (2024)

Director: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett

Cast: Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kathryn Newton, Alisha Weir

Have I Seen it Before: Never. I had nominally avoided it during its theatrical release last year, as Dracula’s Daughter (1936) was easily one of my least favorite of the Universal monster movies. But, then Beyond the Caving in the Woods comes a-calling, and one of these days I may have seen all the horror movies.

Did I Like It: I’m left mostly bewildered by the film. Had it committed to its original idea and indeed been a remake of Dracula’s Daughter, it might have accomplished a number of things previously just out of reach. It would have the been the best possible type of remake, taking a previous film that didn’t work and improving things. It could have also been Universal’s attempt—the fourth one, by my count—in recent years to make a shared monster universe.

But it isn’t either of those things. It barely manages to answer the pitch of “Reservoir Dogs (1992) but Lawrence Tierney turns out to be a vampire and also, there’s a little bit of Home Alone (1990) in there as well.” It accomplishes that excessively busy goal only so much as it ticks off those disparate elements in a perfunctory fashion. I didn’t think I’d get to the end of this longing to watch Dracula’s Daughter, but I definitely didn’t feel like I got anything out of the film that I wouldn’t have gotten from watching Reservoir Dogs, Home Alone… or any of the other attempts Universal has made to light the Dark Universe.

The humor of it all doesn’t quite connect, characters react in awkward ways to everything happening in the film, and at the risk of offering spoilers, I had to look at a plot synopsis to really understand that Joey (Barrera) wasn’t made into a vampire in the film’s climax.

It’s a mess. It may be a mildly likable mess, but it is still a mess.

Lisa Frankenstein (2024)

Director: Zelda Williams

Cast: Kathryn Newton, Cole Sprouse, Liza Soberano, Carla Gugino

Have I Seen it Before: Nope.

Did I Like It: It’s always delightful to come across a film that is both charming and more often than not surprising.

Williams makes a directing debut that is self-assured and clear headed about precisely what movie she wants to present. One might have had a hard time imagining that John Hughes and early Tim Burton would blend together so smoothly, but one might also hope that Williams doesn’t limit herself to that aesthetic in the future. Based on some of her short work, she could truly be a versatile director for years to come.

I for one enjoyed both Juno (2008) and Jennifer’s Body (2009), but I could see the validity of some who would complain that Diablo Cody’s dialogue spends a lot of time trying to keep the audience at a distance, but I was struck by none of those qualities here. Characters still have some idiosyncrasies in their speech, but it doesn’t necessarily sound like the dialogue that got routinely satirized in the late 2000s. Maybe she was shamed out of her weaker impulses, but I’d like to think that she is just more comfortable and no longer needs to rely on the same bag of tricks.

Performances, too are uniformly great. I know Ross’ kid from Friends and one half of the kid from Big Daddy (1999) grew up somewhere along the line, but as someone who never regularly had the Disney channel and still doesn’t understand the appeal of Riverdale, I didn’t know the guy was actually good, managing to turn in an authentically silent performance (in a movie written by Diablo Cody, no less), while Newton manages to be both believable and likable (probably needed qualities in what ultimately amounts to a romantic comedy) while she is slowly descending into what amounts to a murder spree.

* Genuinely surprised to learn it was only Cole who did episodes of Friends. Learn something new every day.