Abigail Haunting (2020) — Movie Review

Abigail Haunting is an indie horror movie about a young woman who falls out with bad company and returns home to her foster mother. Unfortunately, she soon realizes she’s jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.

Katie (Chelsea Jurkiewicz) is a small-town girl who escaped to the big city. The beginning of the movie finds her fleeing a crime scene with a bag full of money. She was supposed to share it with her abusive boyfriend but decides to give him a bullet instead.

Katie gets in her car and drives from Reno, back to her foster mother’s house in Prescott for the first time in many years.

When she arrives Katie finds the mental condition of her foster mother Marge (Brenda Daly) has deteriorated. Marge spends her days sitting in an almost comatose state in front of the television, never leaves the house, and appears to have an aversion to speaking. She doesn’t even greet her daughter when she returns.

One of Marge’s neighbours, a guy named Walter (Michael Monteiro), brings a regular delivery of groceries to her and leaves them by the door. You don’t have to get too far into the movie before you get the suspicion he’s the only person who knows what’s really going on.

It’s not long before Katie’s old friend Brian (Austin Collazo) turns up at the door to welcome her home. In the time she’s been away, he got married, had a son, and then got divorced.

It’s pretty obvious, Brian would like to be more than just a friend and, at times, it appears Katie may have feelings for him too but, like Marge, she’s not keen on leaving the house.

Marge’s house is a depressing place and there are some spooky things going on. For one thing, the night light in Katie’s room has a habit of switching itself on and its not long before viewers get a glimpse of an apparition in the passage.

Then there’s the mystery of why Katie is not supposed to go into the shed. Marge banned her from going in there as a child and Katie is still abiding by the old rules.

During one of his visits, Brian jokes he thinks the shed is where Marge buried all the other foster kids she took in and suggests Katie is the lucky one.

Katie tells him the place certainly has secrets and admits she always feels like something is watching her.

Abigail Haunting is a pretty slow-moving movie, but it does pick up pace towards the end. If you watch it, you are likely to spend a lot of time wondering what’s going on and, of course, what secrets are hidden inside the shed.

A third of the way into the movie, Katie plucks up enough courage to go into the shed and find a hiding place for her swag but, apart from dust, there doesn’t seem to be a lot inside.

Thanks to Walter, Katie eventfully discovers Marge used to foster a girl called Abigail, who disappeared. Walter also tells Katie nothing good ever came from the house. He advises her to leave it and go as far away as she can.

Horror movies often have scenes of this nature and it’s pretty normal for the characters issued such warnings to ignore the advice. Katie is no exception. She stays and the ghostly happenings in the house continue to get worse.

Abigail Haunting is not a great horror movie but nor is it one of the worst. All the actors give credible performances and everything becomes clear at the end.

Some parts of the story are actually quite clever and there is a twist at the end that many people may not see coming. I certainly never expected things to end up as they did.

Abigail Haunting is not a horror movie that tries to shock you with scenes of blood and gore. There is no sex and there’s very little violence. If you are looking for any of those things you will need to look elsewhere.

However, there are a few creepy scenes and parts of the movie may make you shudder or sit back in your seat. If you like movies that have a supernatural menace you and Abigail Haunting should get along fine. It’s a pretty decent movie all around.

At the time of this review, it wasn’t possible to buy Abigail Haunting on Blu-ray or DVD. However, if you want to see the movie, it’s possible to stream it on Amazon.

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