Abigail (2024) review

A dapper gentleman named Lambert (Giancarlo Esposito) recruits a group of criminals from various backgrounds, gives them nicknames from The Rat Pack - there's medic "Joey" (Melissa Barrera), ex-cop "Frank" (Dan Stevens), cybercriminal "Sammy" (Kathryn Newton), strongman "Peter" (Kevin Durand), former soldier "Rickles" (Will Catlett) and driver "Dean" (Angus Cloud) - and orders them to kidnap ballerina Abigail (Alisha Weir) and keep watch over her twenty-four hours ... except Abigail isn't exactly defenseless, and her father is a much-feared underworld figure.  As I've written previously, these horror-comedy hybrids don't typically "work" (it's a delicate balancing act) and that is once again the case here - plus, it's a smidge difficult to find a little girl with jagged teeth who prances around the set all that menacing - but in its defense it does get progressively nastier as it goes on, leading up to a finale that definitely owes a lot to the New French Extremity movement with its nonstop violence and bloodshed (where bodies are regularly impaled and explode).  It also features a "twist" I particularly like - where the villain "switches sides" - and there's a brief appearance by a well-known character actor where he tries to placate his clearly agitated child.