“Abigail” is one bloody naughty horror film about a bunch of criminals stuck with their one little nasty hostage. While its trailer already revealed too much of its major surprise, you may enjoy the movie more if you do not have much idea on what it is about, so I sincerely suggest to you that you should stop reading this review right now, especially if you are already interested enough to check out the film.

At first, the movie presents itself as your average hostage thriller drama. We are introduced to a group of various figures hired to kidnap the young daughter of a certain powerful figure, and we see how quickly they get their unpleasant job done shortly after she returns to her home. Once they have this little girl, they go to a big manor located at some remote spot, and their employer instructs them to keep her for next 24 hours before her father pays the ransom for her.

Of course, it does not take much time for the group to sense something fishy about their job. For example, they do not know that much about each other from the beginning, and they are also not even permitted to reveal anything about themselves to each other while required to use each own alias all the time. In addition, their employer does not tell anything about who the father of that little girl is, though they are promised that they all will get paid handsomely for their seemingly simple job.

That little girl, Abigail (Alisha Weir), naturally seems frightened and disturbed once discerning what is going on around her, and Joey (Melissa Barrera) feels a bit sympathetic to her due to a little personal matter of hers. While still hiding a lot about herself from Abigail, Joey promises to Abigail that everything will be all right in the end, but then she comes to suspect more when Abigail gives her a small indirect warning before she leaves.

It is not much of a spoiler to tell you that Joey and her fellow criminals soon come to learn that they happen to mess with someone very powerful and dangerous. To make matters worse, they suddenly find themselves trapped inside the house, and then there comes a real big shock and awe for them when Abigail finally reveals her true identity in front of them. Well, this seemingly helpless girl turns out to be a blood-craving vampire, and Joey and her accomplices belatedly come to realize that their real job is being delivered to this little nasty bloodsucker as the latest preys to play with.

The main entertainment of the movie is how Joey and her criminal partners are cornered in one way or another by Abigail, just like the characters of a certain famous Agatha Christie mystery novel which appears briefly in the middle of the story. While they do have some advantages in addition to the necessary knowledge on vampire, they are expectedly eliminated one by one along the story, and the movie surely has some naughty fun with each of these horrifying moments filled with lots of blood and violence.

For directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, this is a familiar stuff for them. After all, their previous film “Ready or Not” (2019) is a cheerfully violent horror comedy film about one young woman who must fight against her murderous in-laws after suddenly trapped inside their big house during her wedding night, and they do not restrain themselves at all as “Abigail” gets bloodier and bloodier along with its titular character. While she is your typical little terror, Abigail is a striking horror movie character to remember, and the movie certainly goes all the way for more twisted fun whenever she strikes upon her opponents as gleefully as, say, that little sadistic prick in “Home Alone” (1990).

Needless to say, young performer Alisha Weir is having a ball with playing an uncompromisingly nasty monster who is also somehow likable to some degree. While looking innocent with her pretty white ballet attire, Weir plays a number of juicy moments of grace, horror, and blood with sheer gusto, and the result is as diabolical as Patty McCormack’s memorable Oscar-nominated performance in “The Bad Seed” (1956). Yes, Abigail is indeed a horrible creature, but she simply follows her very unpleasant nature, and you may cheer a bit for her as occasionally amused by how she is very determined to have a lot of fun besides satiating her bloody urge.

The rest of the main cast simply fill their respective archetype roles while often supporting Weir as much as possible. While Melissa Barrera, who previously collaborated with Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillet in two recent Scream flicks, and Dan Stevens, who is no stranger to the genre considering his wryly chilling performance in “The Guest” (2014), are the most prominent ones in the bunch, Will Catlett, Kathryn Newton, Kevin Durand, Angus Cloud (He unfortunately died not long before the movie was released in US, by the way), and Giancarlo Esposito did an effective job of filling each own spot in the story, and you may also appreciate the brief appearance by a certain recognizable actor around the end of the film.

On the whole, “Abigail” is another solid genre product from Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillet, and it has enough enjoyable stuffs for you even if you already know a lot about its story premise. Just like its titular character, the movie simply intends to have a fun within its genre conventions, and that is entertaining enough in my inconsequential opinion.