Abigail Ending Explained: A Bloody Ballet Where Death Is A Divertissement
This article contains massive spoilers for "Abigail."
Dancing ballet en Pointe is arguably one of the hardest styles of dance to perfect. It takes years of training and rigorous dedication to master the move, and even still, without the support of pointe shoes, the body alone is not enough to withstand the pressure of the weight of a full human on such a small surface area. Ballet en Pointe can be hell on the body — especially the feet — but when executed properly, it looks absolutely effortless. In "Abigail," the incredible new horror film from the creative collective known as Radio Silence, a group of criminals are tasked with kidnapping a small girl named Abigail and holding her for ransom only to discover that they've been set up, and Abigail is a vampire who has locked them in her mansion of horrors to "play with her food" before devouring them all.
According to a Q&A Radio Silence conducted after a Los Angeles screening, "Abigail" is a film about "power and control." And there's nothing that requires more power and control than perfecting ballet. At the same time, there's a constant fluctuation throughout the film of who is in the power position. When tiny Abigail is kidnapped by full-grown adults, it looks as if this team has both the power and control, but as the film carries on, and more truths are uncovered, "Abigail" plays out like a dance, with deaths serving as a divertissement. They're fun to look at, and they're riveting to experience, but ultimately, this is not a story of survival — it's a story about finding your power and refusing to let anyone else have control over you.
Meet the Pack of Rats
The ensemble cast is a horror-comedy version of "The Usual Suspects," featuring former cop Frank (Dan Stevens), maternal former medic in recovery for drug addiction Joey (Melissa Barrera), eager rich-girl hacker Sammy (Kathryn Newton), endearing lunkhead Peter (Kevin Durand), former Marine and stoic lookout sniper Rickles (William Catlett), and unprofessional runaway driver Dean (Angus Cloud, in one of his final roles). The group has been assembled by Giancarlo Esposito's mysterious Lambert, who gives them all code names based on members of The Rat Pack, declaring the miscreants his "pack of rats." From the very beginning, there's a battle for dominance between Frank and Joey, with Frank viewing himself as the de facto leader of the group. But Joey quickly proves to be more intellectually capable and observant than anyone else.
On the surface, Frank looks to hold the most power because he's the most aggressive, but Joey is constantly performing a delicate dance. Her power is effortless while the rest of the group is constantly trying to prove their worth. As the medic, she is tasked with being the sole human that interacts with Abigail, and makes a pinky promise to the young girl that no one is going to hurt her. Abigail takes to Joey immediately and even warns her that the group has "made a mistake," because her father doesn't care enough about her to give money for her safety, but makes a vague apology to Joey for "what's going to happen" to them all. Joey relays this to Frank because she "doesn't scare easily" so she pays attention when she does, and Frank takes it upon himself to threaten Abigail for information.
Who's her daddy?
Abigail reveals herself to Frank as the daughter of the powerful and mysterious Kristoff (or Christophe? We're not given a spelling) Lazar. Not only is this name a shortened version of "Lazarus," aka the man who was revived from the dead in the Bible, but the name "Lazar" as both a forename and a family name has appeared in a multitude of vampire stories including "Underworld" and "Vampire Academy." Equally as terrifying is the threat of Lazar's second-in-command, who uses the moniker Valdez.
I've admittedly been racking my brain trying to figure out who the name could be a reference to (if any) and my only thought is the old Burt Lancaster-starring Western "Valdez is Coming," about a lawman who is tricked into killing an innocent man and then enacts revenge by killing off the henchmen of the man who fooled him. Valdez does a lot of bidding for Lazar, including the rumor that a group of cops were ripped to shreds while hiding out on the 23rd story of a building despite no one coming in or out.
Abigail tries to turn the group against one another by claiming Frank is actually Valdez, but once she reveals her vampirism, the Rat Pack realizes that she is Valdez, and has been doing the dirty work of her father by killing off his enemies — them included. Abigail has held the power and control this entire time, and she's held it without anyone realizing it ... just like ballet!
Ballerina vampire blood bath
Abigail's reign of terror is equal parts gruesome and hilarious. After she decapitates Dean in the kitchen, she leaves his body on display for the rest of the group to find just to mess with them. She dances with his headless corpse because she knows it's deeply f***ed up and laugh-out-loud funny to see. She kills Rickles almost immediately after he and Joey split up because she has excellent comedic timing. She uses Peter's crucifix necklace to stab him dozens of times with small cuts just so she can rub his blood all over his face. She uses Frank's pool stick stake to stab him in the leg while in an extended grand battement en arrière because Abigail lives the gimmick. She chases the group down the stairs while practically floating on the banister.
Poor Sammy ends up falling into the mansion's indoor pool, which has become a dumping ground for the hundreds of bodies of Abigail's previous victims, drenching her with rotting body ooze. Already traumatized, Abigail bites Sammy with the sole intention of glamouring her once she is reunited with the rest of the group, and when Joey finally subdues the tiny dancer with a tranquilizer, Abigail gladly mouths off with a barrage of swears. They lock Abigail up in an elevator cage and for the first time, the Rat Pack has the power position ... or do they?
Oops, all vampires!
While locked up, Abigail reads them all to filth — calling them by their real names and calling out their less-than-stellar histories. Sammy, Joey, and Peter leave Frank alone with Abigail so Joey can tend to their wounds, allowing Abigail to offer an escape route for Frank if he frees her from the cage. Frank, thinking he's in the power position, betrays Abigail's offer, only for her to kick down the door of the cage. She's been capable of this the whole time, it was yet another effortless display of maintaining power. She also tells Frank there's a secret wall triggered by moving a copy of "And Then There Were None" on a bookshelf, a great bit considering the Agatha Christie novel about a group of people in a secluded destination who realize there's a killer among them. Again, Abigail has a great sense of humor!
Joey hears the commotion and breaks down a board to flash sunlight onto her arm, and Abigail's hand explodes off of her body. Abigail gives the group a few hours alone to avoid the sunlight and regenerate her hand and they decide to split up and look for a power source to turn off the gates locking them into the house.
While separated, Abigail glamours Sammy and forces her to do her bidding — killing Peter and dancing to Danzig in the process. Sammy then sets her sights on Frank and Joey but explodes into a geyser of blood after Joey uses a tray to reflect sunlight onto her. When it seems like hope is lost for the final two, a secret door leading to the control room opens and they find Lambert — also a vampire — waiting. He tells Frank that he was turned two years ago but is done being under Abigail's control, and asks Frank if he wants to join the team and take down Abigail and her father. A shocker to no one, Frank is on board and is ready to live his Severin in "Near Dark" fantasy.
We're all just blood bags
Lambert transforms Frank by not only biting but allowing him to drink vampire blood as his first feed, giving him autonomy as a vampire instead of being a puppet like Sammy. Almost immediately, Frank turns on Lambert and stakes him for setting him up when he was a human, and he explodes instantly. Joey manages to sneak out with her retrieved cell phone to leave a message for her son, Caleb, the reason she even took the job in the first place in the hopes that financial stability would allow her to be a better mom. Frank is now drunk with power and feels as if he's got control of everything, but Joey's not going down without a knock-down, drag-out fight. Frank's drunk with his newfound strength and power, throwing Joey around like a rag doll. Abigail appears, finally healed, but Frank bites her to weaken her.
Joey keeps fighting for her life, attempting to stake Frank when Abigail offers her the chance to survive if she's willing to align with her to take him down. She's too weak to do this on her own, and with her powerful father truly nowhere to be found, she needs an ally. Frank impales Joey while he attacks Abigail, but even in her weakened state, the tiny vampire raises up her pinky. Just as Joey pinky promised she wouldn't let anyone hurt Abigail when she thought she was just a little girl, Abigail is promising that she'll let Joey go if she helps stop Frank.
Keeping a pinky promise
Frank bites Joey and attempts to glamour her to kill Abigail for him and it looks as if he's taken total control of the situation. Joey grabs a stake, stands up, and approaches Abigail who cowers in fear ... before immediately turning around and trying to stab Frank. She was never glamoured because as Abigail tells Frank, "It takes a long time to learn how to do the cool s***." She's not strong enough to take him down, and he throws her away from him, but Joey and Abigail work together to shove a stake through his heart. He explodes from beneath them, tossing them both across the room. Abigail's fangs and vampiric eyes have reverted to her human form, a sign that she is making good on her promise to let Joey go.
But it's then that Abigail's father arrives, played spectacularly by Matthew Goode. It's implied that he's Dracula although the film never makes it explicit, and he initially doesn't have any interest in letting Joey go. Abigail screams at her father to let Joey live because she was there to save her life when he wasn't. It's a humbling moment where the man with the ultimate power relinquishes in favor of getting back in the good graces of his daughter.
Joey leaves the mansion, covered in blood, and drives away in the getaway van they used to kidnap Abigail. Before driving off, she finds a piece of candy she had left in the van — a means to curb her addiction cravings to remain sober — a sign that she is in control of her life and her future.
Death as a Divertissement
In ballet, a divertissement is a short dance meant to showcase a dancer's technical skill without advancing the plot or character development. It's the equivalent of a "filler episode" of television, in that it doesn't necessarily advance the plot but can enhance the love a person has for the characters or world-building. This is how death is presented in "Abigail," a means to allow her to show off how cool she is (and for Radio Silence to once again lean into their exploding bodies fun from "Ready or Not") and instead focus on an entirely new approach to vampire cinema. Vampire stories are at their core, tales of seduction and power imbalances.
But with Abigail's physical form resembling a 12-year-old girl instead of an adult woman, the traditional approach of luring victims in with sensuality or promises of eternal life isn't as effective. Abigail is trapped as a young girl for eternity, which would feel like a curse for just about anyone. She also certainly isn't going to try and start her own harem like the vampires that came before, because anyone interested in worshipping an eternal pre-teen deserves to have their head snapped off and tossed into a pool of rotted viscera. Instead, "Abigail" is allowed to showcase a new kind of power dynamic — one where the person with the most strength and control is the one doing so with such ease that it looks effortless.
"Abigal" is now playing in theaters everywhere.