An anonymous group of criminals are assembled to break into a house, kidnap the girl living inside, and then transport her to a remote sprawling mansion. There they are tasked with sitting and waiting for 24 hours for the girl’s father to deliver a ransom payment. Things seem simple. Things are never simple.

Abigail is one of those films where the full premise almost feels like a spoiler, and where the less one knows going in the more enjoyable the ensuing film is likely to be. It is well-performed, decently shot, and quite unexpectedly bloody. It comes from directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, who previous films include Ready or Not and the fifth and sixth Scream, and is on the whole an entertaining and pulpy thriller. That is honestly all you need to know: it is not flawless, but it is fun. Enjoy your Saturday night at the movies.

For those that either have already seen Abigail, or who do not mind knowing some of its surprises, the film turns out to be a very loose remake of Lambert Hillyer’s 1936 horror sequel Dracula’s Daughter. Abigail (Alisha Weir), the titular ballet dancing 12-year-old, begins the film as a frightened victim only to subsequently reveal herself as a vampire. The ensuing mayhem is a spirited mash-up of old-fashioned horror movie and post-Tarantino crime thriller. There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek humour, and the horror elements are of the over-the-top bucketfuls-of-blood variety.

Weir is superb in the role, playing a Jekyll-and-Hyde combination of fragile child and psychopathic monster. She is, in turns, sympathetic, appealing, funny, and frightening. Trapped inside the anonymous mansion is an ensemble of criminal characters, with the actors leaning heavily into self-aware archetypes. Melissa Barrera, reuniting with the directors after their Scream films, plays the tough-but-sympathetic medic Joey. Dan Stevens plays corrupt ex-cop Frank, working in a bleaker register than his typical roles. Will Catlett is solid as sniper Rickles, and Kevin Durand pulls the maximum humour out of French-accented mobster Peter. Kathryn Newton feels like a weak link as young computer hacker Sammy; her character is more stereotype than archetype, and she fails to find a satisfactory route out of it.

Things do get wobbly during the film’s climactic act, as a few poor story choices send the narrative in an unsatisfactory direction and struggles to find a timely ending. The very final plot development in particular feels rather silly and unnecessary, and nowhere near as clever as its writers and directors may have thought. It is a pity, since the bulk of the film leading up to this partially failed climax is very enjoyable. You cannot win them all, I guess. Another odd quirk that outstays its welcome is the number of times characters explode in a fountain of blood. It is funny once. By the fourth or fifth time it gets a little tedious to watch.

So: Abigail represents, with caveats, an enjoyably bloody slice of pulp. It is, for the most part, a gleefully fun and relatively silly time. Genre fans should be confident in checking it out, albeit with a few measured expectations.