Abigail: Everything you need to know about the enjoyably gory new horror-comedy

Gore-soaked vampire horror-comedy Abigail sinks in its teeth and won't let go. An all-star cast fronts this bloody and spirited hybrid of heist thriller and monster movie, and it's on release this Friday. Here's everything you need to know including cast, story and release date.

What is the story of Abigail?

A group of crooks breaks into a rich man's house with the aim of holding his daughter, a ballerina, for ransom. However, the gang gets more than they bargained for when the girl is revealed to be a vicious, bloodthirsty vampire.

Who stars in Abigail?

Scream star Melissa Barrera leads the cast as sympathetic criminal and single mother Joey. Matilda star Alisha Weir plays the apparently innocent but decidedly feral Abigail who cuts through Joey's team. The rest of the cast comprises Dan Stevens (The Guest), Kathryn Newton (Freaky), Kevin Durand (Robin Hood) and the late Angus Cloud (Euphoria).

Discover how the talented Alisha graduated from Roald Dahl to rampaging vampire in the following behind-the-scenes extract.

Who directs Abigail?

Abigail is directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett who go by the alias Radio Silence. They recently achieved success with the fifth and sixth Scream movies, released in 2022 and 2023, both of which featured Abigail's Melissa Barrera. Prior to the Scream films, Radio Silence was acclaimed for the memorably twisted horror-comedy Ready or Not, which cast Samara Weaving (who made a cameo in Scream 6) as an unsuspecting bride drawn into a deadly game of hude and seek with her new family.

In an interview with Den of Geek, Bettinelli-Olpin describes Abigail as “A heist movie that gets hijacked by a monster movie", while Gillett says "This is Ready or Not on steroids."

Just how gory is Abigail? If you've got the stomach for it, find out by watching the following behind-the-scenes clip.

Has Abigail received good reviews?

Abigail has received positive reviews with critics hailing its outrageous levels of gore and its witty deconstruction of vampire mythology, which includes plenty of meta references to Twilight and Bram Stoker.

Den of Geek's Rosie Fletcher raves: "Radio Silence have proven themselves as one of the most exciting, and crucially, fun, voices in the horror genre and Abigail takes this to the next level. Radio Silence have been occupied with the last two Scream movies of late, but Abigail is much closer in tone to 2019's Ready or Not. That movie was a lot of fun, and this one is even better, with a pleasingly twisty plot, ramping up the shocks and gore and providing plenty of laughs from its excellent ensemble cast."