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Abigail Directors Reveal Axed Dialogue That Would've Made Lazar Even More of a Vampiric Threat
Abigail is now streaming exclusively on Peacock!
In the wise words of Qui-Gon Jinn, "There's always a bigger fish." When placed within the context of horror-based cinema, that meme-able axiom uttered by Liam Neeson's Jedi Knight in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace explains how filmmakers find ways to up the ante with sequels and reinterpretations of well-worn classics. James Cameron is a great example of how one successfully implements such a philosophy.
We've made the argument before. What's scarier than a lone Xenomorph? An entire horde of Xenomorphs beholden to a much-larger queen. What's more imposing than an unstoppable android assassin from the future? An unstoppable android assassin from the future that can look like anyone and move through tight spaces. It's all about giving audiences a new and imposing threat, while organically building off of what came before.
The Radio Silence team kept all of that in mind while making Abigail (now streaming exclusively on Peacock), which presents a novel twist on the vampire genre and, more importantly, the trite Dracula mythos. No one can deny the concept of a bloodsucking ballerina tearing through a group of kidnappers isn't novel.
Abigail directors reveal cut reference to Count Dracula in movie's final scene
Of course, the most famous bloodsucker of them all doesn't really appear in the movie's final moments, and even then, we don't get concrete confirmation on whether Abigail's father, "Kristof Lazar" (played by Watchmen's Matthew Goode), is merely a pseudonym for "Count Dracula," though the syllable counts certainly do match up. "We were very excited about the idea that we just made a new take on vampires that subverts the vampire thing, and then in the last five minutes this handsome, sexy, charming vampire walks into the movie," Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, who directed the project alongside Tyler Gillet, reveals in the latest issue of Empire.
While the ambiguity surrounding the character works to the story's benefit, the co-directors did consider making Lazar — already a feared figure in the criminal underworld — even more of a terrifying badass. In other words, they nearly went the "bigger fish" route by having Lazar admit to killing Dracula long before the events of the film. "There was ... a version where he said, 'Oh, I killed that motherf—er 200 years ago. Dracula's nothing!'" Gillet remembers.
They ultimately resisted the impulse to mention the fanged icon as a way to distinguish their work from every other vampire story that has graced the silver screen since Nosferatu over a century ago. "[We thought], 'Let's just make this our vampire movie," Bettinelli-Olpin explains. "Having Dracula in it overtly took away some of that for us."
How to watch Abigail
Abigail is now streaming exclusively on Peacock.
The NBCUniversal platform offers two monthly subscription plans: Premium ($7.99 a month with ads) and Premium Plus ($13.99 a month with no ads and download access for certain titles). If you're a student, you can enjoy the Premium plan for just $1.99 for an entire year!
The film is also available to own from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment across a number of different formats.
