Radio Silence Duo Compares Melissa Barrera's Abigail & Scream Characters

Summary Abigail is not your typical horror movie, as it combines heist elements with a bloodthirsty monster twist.

Directors Tyler Gillett and Matt Betinelli-Opin praise Melissa Barrera's fearlessness and empathy in her performance.

Practical effects take center stage in creating the impressive and bloody scenes in Abigail, adding to the tactile horror experience.

In Abigail, a crew of criminals kidnap a young girl in order to ransom her back to her father for $50 million. However, while staying in the secluded house where they are keeping her for the night, tensions run high as strange occurrences befall them. They soon discover that not is all as they believed when they discover that they are trapped in the house with the little girl, Abigail, who is actually a bloodthirsty monster in disguise, not the other way around.

The Radio Silence directing duo Tyler Gillett and Matt Betinelli-Opin have made quite a name for themselves in horror. They cut their teeth with V/H/S and Ready or Not before rekindling excitement for the beloved horror franchise Scream with Scream and Scream VI. Abigail is an opportunity for them to not just tap into the horror and comedy that they have become synonymous with, but play with the heist genre as well.

Related Abigail Review: Scream 6 Directors Reinvent Vampire Movies In Highly Entertaining, Gory Horror In what may become one of the greatest vampire movies of all time, Abigail provides an extremely bloody, fun, humorous & fresh take on the subgenre.

Screen Rant interviewed Radio Silence directing duo Tyler Gillett and Matt Betinelli-Opin about their new horror movie Abigail. The pair praised Barrera's performance and explained how she draws audiences in with both Abigail and Scream. Betinelli-Opin also gives an exciting update on Ready or Not 2 and discussed keeping details about the heist crew in Abigail under wraps.

Abigail Directors Praise Melissa Barrera's Fearlessness, Vulnerability, And Empathy

Barrera has made quite a name for herself in the horror space, becoming one of the more well-known scream queens of today. Her performance as Sam Carpenter in Scream and Scream VI helped to reignite excitement for the franchise, drawing in countless new fans. In Abigail, she once again plays a complicated character tapping into vulnerability and toughness in an extraordinary situation.

Tyler Gillett: I think that Melissa is incredibly relatable and she's not afraid to be vulnerable. I think that is what you have to have. You have to have a character at the center of any horror movie that's going to draw you in and that you can see yourself reflected through. And Melissa there's a fearlessness in the way that she approaches every character that we've worked with her on that I think is just really sticky. It has audiences leaning in. At the end of the day, if you feel empathy for that character, then you're afraid when they're in peril, and you're so satisfied if they make it out alive. Melissa just does that remarkably, remarkably well. It seems effortless the way that she handle that. Matt Betinelli-Opin: Just to add one thing to it too, I think she also has an incredible sense of empathy. So the way she cares about Abigail in this makes you care about her in a great way. Same thing with the way she cares about Tara in the Scream movies. You can feel it in every scene when she's with somebody else.

Abigail begins as a heist movie with a team of criminals each playing an important role in a scheme to kidnap a young girl in order to ransom her to her father. As part of their protocol, details about each criminal are kept closely guarded. However, as the movie spirals into a monster, movie secrets begin to spill out, in part because they are attempting to survive while trapped in a house with a bloodthirsty monster.

Matt Betinelli-Opin: A lot of that was on the page and it was really wonderful watching it come to life with these actors. We joked a lot about how they're kind of all in different movies from different eras even. So much of the fun of it was we got a lot of stuff when we were shooting and then in the edit really deciding, we don't need to know that yet. Let's wait till later. Let's wait till later. And trying to hold off as long as we could for most of the information.

Image via Universal Pictures

While CG special effects have become instrumental to movie making today, the use of practical effects is still a key part of great horror. Gillett explained how using practical effects helps to build camaraderie on set, as the many different production teams must work together to pull off the impressive and bloody scenes.

Tyler Gillett: We set out to try to achieve any effect as practically as possible. For us that's about certainly the audience's experience. We as fans of movies that deploy those kind of practical effects, feel a connection to the movie when you can tell that it's handmade, that the magic of what you're seeing is actually crafted. And so that's a huge part of it for us. But just in terms of being behind the camera, it's so fun to watch that stuff take shape to design those moments. It creates a morale on set when everybody has come together to achieve something like that. There's a community of people that come together and the energy of that, it's so fun to be a part of. It's so fun to design. At the end of the day, I think it's why people show up to make horror is because it's so tactile and so there's an enthusiasm that you get when you're making something practically that you just can't achieve any other way.

Radio Silence also gave a promising update on the highly anticipated sequel to their smash hit Ready or Not. Although they are keeping details close to the vest, they did hype up the script for Ready or Not 2 and confirm that the script has been written.

Matt Betinelli-Opin: It's written, it's fantastic. That is not as much as we know. The script is incredible, though.

About Abigail

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After a group of would-be criminals kidnap the 12-year-old ballerina daughter of a powerful underworld figure, all they have to do to collect a $50 million ransom is watch the girl overnight. In an isolated mansion, the captors start to dwindle, one by one, and they discover, to their mounting horror, that they’re locked inside with no normal little girl.

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Abigail hits theaters on April 19.

Source: Screen Rant Plus