Melissa Barrera's New Horror Movie Repeats A Viral Killer Act From $181 Million Hit

Summary Abigail, directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, features a creepy ballet-dancing vampire taunting her victims, similar to M3GAN.

Unlike M3GAN's humorous dance scene, Abigail's ballet sequences are not played for laughs but add a creepy element to the horror-comedy.

The film misses the fun, campy aspect of M3GAN's dance scene, using classical ballet from Swan Lake to enhance the villain's terrifying presence.

Melissa Barrera’s latest blood-soaked horror vehicle, Abigail, copies the most viral moment from a different scary movie (but it’s missing the winking self-awareness). Helmed by Barrera’s Scream directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, Abigail is a reimagining of Dracula’s Daughter that sees a band of criminals abducting a 12-year-old ballerina and slowly coming to the realization that she’s a bloodthirsty vampire. All the criminals’ aliases are taken from members of the Rat Pack – Frank, Dean, Sammy, etc. – and Barrera plays Joey, a former Army medic and recovering drug addict (and arguably the most likable of the kidnappers).

Abigail has a lot of fun with its premise of trapping a bunch of bad people in a spooky mansion with a seemingly innocent little girl who’s actually a terrifying monster. The conceit of a horror villain who looks like a sweet, harmless child but is actually a cold-blooded killer is reminiscent of M3GAN, the 2023 horror hit about a child-rearing A.I. doll who goes on a killing spree. And this conceit isn’t the only parallel between Abigail and M3GAN; the former borrows the latter’s most viral moment, too.

Abigail Dances To Taunt Her Victims Just Like M3GAN

M3GAN went viral due to a scene in which the titular killer robot does a dance before hacking someone to death in a hallway. This scene instantly became iconic and even started a popular TikTok trend as TikTok users would recreate M3GAN’s dance for views. In the movie, M3GAN’s dancing serves the sadistic purpose of taunting her helpless victims before she kills them. It’s slightly unnerving while still feeding into the overall camp tone of the film. Abigail uses dancing in a similar way.

The eponymous undead ballerina in Abigail also dances to taunt her victims before killing them. The only difference is that, while M3GAN uses a more modern TikTok-style of dance, Abigail does classical ballet. Abigail uses compositions from Swan Lake to underscore its villain’s creepy dancing. Abigail incorporates ballet into the chase sequences as she runs after her kidnappers and prepares to slay them.

Abigail Missed The Brilliance Of M3GAN's Dancing

While both Abigail and M3GAN use dancing to spruce up their murder scenes, Abigail misses what made M3GAN’s dance scene so great. M3GAN used a pre-murder dance to lean more into its fun tone and emphasize the campness of the filmmakers’ vision. Whereas Abigail is a horror comedy on the whole, and there’s plenty of humor in the film, the ballet scenes aren’t played for laughs like M3GAN’s viral TikTok dance.