Radio Silence raises the bar. Again.

In an American city under the cover of night, a diabolical plan is enacted by a band of criminals. The crew: the driver (Angus Cloud), the hacker (Kathryn Newton), the sniper (William Catlett), the muscle (Kevin Durant), the handler (Melissa Barrera), and their leader (Dan Stevens), recruited by a shadowy employer (Giancarlo Esposito). The rules: no real names, no true backgrounds, just the job and getting paid before quietly all going their separate ways. Their target: Abigail (Alisha Weir), a perfectly normal thirteen year-old human girl who enjoys ballet and a filthy-rich lifestyle. Unbeknownst to the crew (but beknownst to the audience), nothing about their target is normal — or indeed human — as a 24-hour babysitting job (for a cool share of $50 million) turns into an all-out bloodbath.

From Ready or Not to resurrecting the Scream franchise with two near-perfect requels, the folks calling themselves Radio Silence are fans turned filmmakers who know exactly how far to punch above their pay grade to delight audiences. From characterization and story to stunts and visceral horror, these folks want it all and deliver it all, defying expectations by taking things at least a step or two farther than viewers expect. The trailers cheerfully give away their plot — foolish criminals lured in for quick cash only to become a vampire buffet — but what don’t we know about what’s really going on here… or how far they’ll take it? A cast list stocked with up-and-comers in a self-aware vampire story sets the stage, but with last year’s Renfield and The Last Voyage of the Demeter falling short of expectations, can co-directors Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillet crack the elusive bloodsucker genre wide open again at the box office?

Horror and vampire fans rejoice! Abigail builds cautiously with its kidnapping caper before transferring the action (and our victims-to-be) to a lockbox mansion dripping with clues for what’s about to happen. When the fangs finally come out, what follows is both exactly what viewers expect and surprisingly more than expected, twisting audience knowledge as the script starts flipping. Each attack brings more carnage while suggesting further possibilities, serving up moments of tension and giving deserving victims just enough hope until it’s wonderfully ripped away again. Playing into the no-good-guys-here trope to let bloody globules fly, alliances are formed and lines are drawn in a fight for survival against supernatural elements appearing in the real-life self-aware and snarky world.

None of this would have worked so well if not for the pure magic of Matilda: The Musical alum Alisha Weir, who not only brought the acting but the physicality to preform 95% of what’s on screen; can Blumhouse pair this wicked little vamp together with M3GAN for a team-up? The film is dedicated to Angus Cloud, the “Euphoria” actor who died tragically before the film was completed but whose parts were completed prior to the actor’s strike. Gary Oldman has a rival in the chameleon actor’s club with Dan Stevens playing a ruthless and calculating planner as “Frank” while inexplicably also the beach-bum Titan-veterinarian Trapper from last month’s Godzilla x Kong film. Kathryn Newton is no stranger to fighting monsters or even playing them on screen, but even she was reportedly surprised by the level of carnage and the directors apologizing to the cast between takes for the barrels of blood. Like her sisterly character in the Scream films, it’s no surprise Melissa Barrera is the maternal heart of the story, even when soaked head to toe in stage blood.

Tugging at heartstrings one moment and ripping hearts out the next is where these filmmakers live, delivering a rollercoaster of horror-genre emotion that dares you to care while setting up delightful deaths. No longer involved with the Scream franchise — and the last one is a perfectly good place to stop — there are whispers of a sequel to Ready or Not and a few thoughts concerning a continuation of Abigail, but whatever’s being prepped next, for now they’re maintaining Radio Silence. Shh…!

Abigail is rated R for strong bloody violence and gore throughout, pervasive language, brief drug use, and playing with your food.

Four skull recommendation out of four