New Horror Movie With 82% On Rotten Tomatoes Is A Harsh Reminder Of Nicolas Cage’s $65M Box Office Flop Last Year

WARNING! Major SPOILERS ahead for Abigail (2024)!

The success of Universal’s new horror movie, Abigail, is a reminder of the disappointing response to Nicolas Cage’s vampire film from 2023, which had great potential within the genre. In Universal’s continued effort to tackle more Classic Monsters from their library, the studio partnered with Scream and Ready or Not directing team Radio Silence on Abigail, a modern reimagining of their 1936 horror film Dracula’s Daughter. Abigail, released in theaters on April 19, now holds a Rotten Tomatoes score of 82% from critics, which is an impressive feat for the horror film following a notable streak of critically-panned vampire movies.

Radio Silence’s acclaimed hit Abigail arrives on the heels of a few other notable attempts by the studio to reinvigorate their Universal Monsters catalog, which have seen varied results in recent years. While there was an early attempt to create the “Dark Universe” with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy remake in 2017, the film proved to be a critical flop and box office disappointment after earning only $410 million against an estimated $125 million budget (via Box Office Mojo). Still, the studio opted to continue their slate of Universal Monster movies with filmmaker-driven standalone films, which now includes a few takes on Dracula with Abigail and a divisive Nicolas Cage movie.

Abigail Is The Hit Modern Vampire Movie That We Wanted Nicolas Cage’s Renfield To Be

Abigail achieves the critical acclaim that Renfield couldn’t

Before Abigail, Universal’s last hand at reviving the extended Dracula lore in horror-comedy fashion was with the 2023 movie Renfield, which starred Nicholas Hoult as the titular henchman and Nicolas Cage as the legendary vampire Dracula. Despite having so much potential with a big $65 million budget, horror movie icon Nicolas Cage as a campy and terrifying Dracula, and The Great star Nicholas Hoult as the lovable lead, Renfield ultimately bombed at the box office and saw mixed reviews from critics. Following its April 2023 release, Renfield only earned $26.5 million worldwide in theaters, and currently holds a “rotten” 58% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.

Renfield was still applauded for being a fun time in theaters with plenty of gory kills and campy performances by its lead actors, but, unfortunately, was a disappointment critically and commercially. As such, Abigail’s widespread critical acclaim and potential for long term box office success is refreshing after Renfield’s unfortunate performance. Renfield was intended to have the same great audience and critical response as Radio Silence’s new movie, and certainly was hoped to be the bloody, humorous form of crowd-pleasing entertainment that Abigail has been touted as.

Abigail and Renfield both take similar approaches to the iconic Dracula tale by sidelining him in favor of an underrepresented character for whom he serves as a neglectful father figure, but the two horror-comedies yielded very different results. With Radio Silence now boasting four back-to-back horror-comedy hits with Ready or Not (2019), Scream (2022), Scream VI (2023), and Abigail (2024), their Dracula’s Daughter reimagining now serves as an inspirational template for Universal’s future Classic Monster movies to learn from. Sadly, however, with Abigail’s “Dracula”-esque character being revealed as Matthew Goode’s Christof Lazar, the chance to redeem Nicolas Cage’s Dracula in a Renfield–Abigail crossover isn’t likely to happen.

Why Abigail Worked Better For Critics Than Renfield

Abigail’s 82% is a big jump from Renfield’s 58% score

While Abigail certainly thrives on some campy moments and humor, Renfield takes that a step further, which didn’t land as well with critics and audiences. Additionally, Renfield’s gore and action were seen as too cartoonish and exaggerated; though Abigail’s bloody violence and gore are certainly amplified to a point that it makes Ready or Not’s ending look like child’s play, they aren’t played in a manner that’s overly cartoonish and animated. Whereas Renfield’s humor and horror approach leans more into the makings of a cult classic than a broader crowdpleasing favorite, Abigail better accomplishes the latter while integrating a smart screenplay and darkly compelling performances.

Perhaps where Abigail succeeds more is its almost complete absence of a Dracula character, whereas Renfield struggled with balancing its use of Nicolas Cage’s campy vampire. Cage’s Dracula was the fan-favorite character that audiences wanted to see have more screentime and perhaps even emerge from Renfield‘s ending undefeated, as he’s ultimately the more compelling of the movie’s ensemble of characters. Meanwhile, the portrait of Abigail’s “Dracula” is painted through descriptions by the other characters and responses to his reputation, making Matthew Goode’s appearance a fun cameo to augment its familial themes rather than an overshadowing twist in the movie’s story.

Abigail Brings An End To The Past Decade’s Bleak Vampire Movie Streak

Vampire movies have had more critical misfires than hits over the last decade

With an 82% score from critics on Rotten Tomatoes, Abigail breathes new life back into the vampire subgenre after numerous critically-panned or mixed-reviewed entries. Before Abigail arrived in April 2024, the last two big vampire movies were the critical misfires Renfield and The Last Voyage of the Demeter, both of which also flopped at the box office in 2023. Similarly, smaller vampire movies like Night Teeth (2021), Day Shift (2022), and The Invitation (2022) couldn’t achieve critical acclaim. Going back further, Universal’s 2014 movie Dracula Untold failed to impress critics on a greater scale, currently holding an abysmal 25% score on Rotten Tomatoes.

For big-budget vampire movies, the last decade has struggled to churn out many critical hits, but Abigail makes future installments in this subgenre more optimistic. Abigail isn’t entirely alone, however, in vampire movies with positive Rotten Tomatoes scores, as Taika Waititi’s 2014 comedy What We Do in the Shadows holds a 96% score, the animated 2018 movie Hotel Transylvania 3 holds a 62% score, 2021’s Blood Red Sky boasts an 81% score, and 2023’s El Conde matches Abigail with an 82% rating on the review aggregator site. Though there are far more critical misfires than hits over the past decade, Abigail’s success in 2024 sets up a great revitalization of vampire movies.

Abigail’s Success Puts More Pressure On Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu Movie This Year

Universal has another vampire movie being released in 2024

Following Abigail, the next major vampire movie being released is Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu remake, which is scheduled to be released in theaters on December 25, 2024. The upcoming horror movie remakes the 1922 German film of the same name, which is loosely based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula novel. Considering Nosferatu boasts several acclaimed horror actors in its cast with the likes of Bill Skarsgård, Nicholas Hoult, and Willem Dafoe, as well as auteur horror director Robert Eggers behind the camera and screenplay, the upcoming vampire movie is expected to achieve even more critical success than Abigail.

With all three of Robert Eggers’ movies having 90% scores on Rotten Tomatoes so far, the pressure is even higher for Nosferatu to be a winner with critics. Abigail now sets the precedent for high-quality vampire movies in 2024 and beyond, and the first few teasers for Nosferatu indicate that the horror subgenre will be on an impressive success streak as 2025 approaches. Of course, as Nosferatu and Abigail are both under the Universal tent of movies, the studio is impressively redeeming its approach to vampire films with its 2024 entries.

Sources: Rotten Tomatoes, Box Office Mojo