And the first easy comparison is to jump at Anne Rice’s 6 year old little girl vampire Claudia from Interview With the Vampire. Before that vampires had always been portrayed as adults that were charming and seductive (or sometimes as brash and brutal monsters.)

At the start of this movie, young Abigail is abducted by a crew of six with a promise of a massive payday. Just don’t ask any questions. And don’t share any personal info. Giancarlo Esposito is the pseudo leader of the crew. Not that he was part of the crew, but he facilitated the gathering of the crew. After Abigail is abducted, Giancarlo laids the ground rules out for them and gives them names to use, since they aren’t allowed to share personal info. Don, Dean, Joey, Frank, Sammy, and Peter. Joey is the main character we are following, and that is obvious from the start. She has been tasked with being the only point of contact with Abigail in order to prevent potential problems. And Joey approaches her role with Abigail with a degree of empathy that only she could offer from among her peers in the crew.

They have to wait 24 hours to get their expected payday. But things change during that time. Because Abigail isn’t a young girl, she is a vampire that has lived for hundreds of years. And she isn’t very happy about being abducted.

And at the onset, this creates a bit of a “huh” moment for me. Because she is a powerful vampire. Why is she going along with this when she could easily escape? And we do find out why, but I don’t want to spoil too much in this.

A few things I enjoyed about this. There was a moment where it channeled Lost Boys for me. If you recall, in that movie they set up a mythology that no two vampires died the same (which doesn’t make sense in a larger scale, but works fine in the movie.) At one point a kidnapper gets turned, and when that kidnapper dies there is a bloody explosion. A death that reminded me a lot of one of the deaths in Lost Boys. And I loved it. Even though I’m not a fan of the over the top gore type of movies (Don’t judge me for Saw, I have other reasons I love it.) The way the vampires die in this is exciting and fun and surprising and splashy.

I mentioned that there had to be some reason as to why Abigail didn’t go full tilt and tear apart her kidnappers. Abigail addresses this with one line. “I like to play with my food.” Because the location they are in was set up by Abigail! It was a trap and the kidnappers can’t get out of the building. And that is fantastic. Because she truly seems to be playing and enjoying herself. Regardless of how morbid and brutal her actions are.

There is a spoiler moment I feel like I need to address. So this is a heavy spoiler. You been warned. Frank had been turned into a vampire by Giancarlo and when fighting against Abigail, he actually bites and drains her. She comes back to fight again and tells Frank that if he wants to defeat her, he needs to drain her completely. Abigail makes a deal with Joey to fight Frank, because Abigail is a bit weak after the first time Abigail and Frank fought. And Frank comes out victorious over Abigail, this time draining her completely. Or so it seemed, because she bounces back again. Which is weird, because she told Frank how to beat her, and then somehow he fails to drain her when given a second chance to. The way the movie ends is great too, because earlier Abigail had told Joey she was going to die, but she lets her live. I think the earlier scene where Joey shot Abigail was a bad decision on the directors part, because that seems to cross a line where Joey could no longer be seen as being empathetic towards Abigail.

Drifting away from spoilers now, let’s wrap things up. This was fun. Flat out entertaining. I throw an 8 at it mostly because of the bit in the spoiler keeping it from rising higher. And I have heard unofficial rumors that there is going to be a sequel. Which makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. I do worry about the possibility of the actress Alisha Weir getting taller and not being able to play the role properly.