Misunderstood Monsters: ABIGAIL and a Tiny Dancer’s Wish to Be Held
By Matt Konopka
Welcome fellow monster kids to Misunderstood Monsters. This is where I, Matt Konopka, sink my fangs into all sorts of beasts, ghouls, and creatures from above while I search for the humanity behind their frightening exteriors. From monster favorites such as The Wolf Man to obscure monsters like the whistling Shadmock, there is more to these fiends than bad hair days and gooey tentacles. Within them all is a piece of ourselves.
Within the crypt of heartbreaking monster stories, few are more tragic than that of the child vampire. For as the mind grows old, their image stays the same. Adults trapped in the body of a kid, forever. From Salem’s Lot (1979) to Let the Right One In (2008), this poor creature has appeared many times within the lore of bloodsuckers, most memorably as the feral child vamp Claudia, played by Kirsten Dunst in Interview with the Vampire (1994). This past year, Ready or Not (2019) directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett gave audiences another to sink their teeth into with Abigail (filmed under the title Dracula’s Daughter in reference to the 1936 film). Not only does Alisha Weir (who plays the title character) deliver an entertaining and vicious performance, but the film presents a young vampire with a different sort of tragedy from her cinematic peers: the undying want to be loved by a parent.
Centered around little girl and talented ballerina, Abigail, we meet this kid performing Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake. In an empty auditorium. No parents in sight. Aaron Morton’s cinematography exemplifies Abigail’s loneliness as the title credits play, occasionally looking down on her dancing on stage, making it appear as if she is floating majestically through darkness. A speck of light drifting through an endless void representative of the solitary eternity that she has been cursed with. Because, as the tiny dancer later confesses from her own lips, “my father doesn’t love me.” We also discover she’s a bloodthirsty vampire following her kidnapping at the hands of Joey (Melissa Barrera) and a team of (mostly) likeable criminals, but that’s beside the point. Every child deserves the affection of a parent.
Those same criminals who will later realize this has all been a set-up by Abigail — a vampire who likes to play with her food — take her to a gothic mansion without knowing that it’s owned by her undead daddy, Lazaar (Matthew Goode). The filmmakers sprinkle hints of that reveal all throughout, from old portraits of a man and child who looks suspiciously like Abigail, to statues of a little girl and her father in the main library where key events of the film occur. Turns out, that library is where Lazaar turned her, meaning the mansion is more than an old, dark house…it’s Abigail’s childhood home. “A lot of painful memories,” she admits. Abigail has quite a few skeletons in the closet of the mansion where she grew up. Literally, the pool is full of dead bodies. It’s a place that rests in the darkest parts of her subconscious, rendered decrepit, cold and monstrous to reflect the feelings — or lack thereof — that have developed between she and her father. As the crooks are locked in, so too is she trapped there in her mind.
Distance between child and parent is a theme that flows like blood between the cracks and crevices of Abigail. Our protagonist, Joey, abandoned her own son after becoming addicted to morphine. Clean now, she wants to return to him…but hasn’t found the courage. During a game of guessing backstories, it’s revealed that muscle man Peter (Kevin Durand) may have been beaten by his father. We learn teenage hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton) got her criminal career started by stealing from her parents. And the leader of this “pack of rats,” Frank (Dan Stevens), also deserted his family. Not because of addiction or shame, but because he prefers being without them. Nearly everyone in this story has been touched by the tragedy of a broken relationship between a child and a parent. Abigail reflects the pain of an adolescent’s abandonment back at Joey, whereas Joey stands in for the parent that has abandoned Abigail. The ballerina vampire’s sympathy for Joey, the fact that she’s sorry for what’s going to happen to her, can be attributed to the fact that she recognizes this mother’s pain over not being with her child and perhaps wishes (hopes) her father feels the same.
Abigail grabs audiences by the neck and exhales its pungent, garlic-breath truth into our faces through its title character…that no matter how much we age, we are eternally our parent’s child. Despite the gray hairs, the wrinkles, the goddamn liver spots, we’ll always be a kid in the eyes of those who raised us. And we’ll feel like it, too. Granted, none of our situations are the same. Some haven’t talked to their parents in years. Some can’t. Some never knew them. The lucky few have a relationship where their parents are their best friend. Not me. Not many of us. I can look in the mirror at my balding head and my approaching forty face — the star of my own hagsploitation film — and recognize that I’m not that little boy with a bowl cut anymore. But in the presence of my parents, I still am. I’m that kid who wants them to be proud of me. To support me. To love me. The children that we were…they never go away. “I’ve had a few centuries of experience,” responds Abigail once Joey and the others realize she’s no little girl. Not really. Abigail acknowledges she’s been pretending, but underneath that is an admission that she has, indeed, had centuries of knowing what it’s like to be a scared kid. Notice how each time she mentions Lazaar, she is either in cuffs or locked in the elevator cage. She has been trapped in her feelings of life without her father for ages.
Of course, the film is ultimately Joey’s story, but it’s Abigail’s, too. Hence the setting at her childhood home. The parent in Joey reflects the father she wishes would return to her. And the events culminate in that library where the young girl was bitten, where she and Joey take down the epitome of bad fathers in Frank with a glorious burst of blood, and where Lazaar finally makes his grand entrance. We don’t know how long it’s been since Abigail felt her father’s love. Months? Years? Centuries? But it’s in that moment that he recognizes her agony for the first time in a long time and assures her he’s “here now.” That’s all Abigail wanted. All any of us can ask for. As she tells Joey, “You just have to show up.” We, like Abigail, want to know that our parents are there for us. We don’t want to dance on the stage of life to the absent applause of a mother or father who isn’t and perhaps was never there. We want to believe that either in person or spirit, their face is out there somewhere amongst the seats, cheering on the kid we’ll always be to them.
No, I’m not crying. It’s just the fucking onions. 🩸
About
Matt is a writer and wannabe werewolf who began his love of horror at the ripe old age of 3 with John Carpenter’s Christine. He has previously been published on Dread Central, Certified Forgotten, Daily Grindhouse and others. He has also contributed essays for releases from labels such as Arrow Video. He lives in Los Angeles, CA, with his wonderful wife and their fur baby, Storm.
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