Nearly 130 years after Bram Stoker published his gothic masterpiece Dracula, and almost 550 years since the death of the real-life man who likely inspired it, Vlad the Impaler, Mexican superstar Melissa Barrera has spoken to The Sunday Times about another blood-soaked tale of vampires.
While the new horror-comedy Abigail is not directly linked to Stoker’s famed bloodsucker, it certainly wouldn’t exist without it.
It’s a remake of the 1936 proto-horror flick Dracula’s Daughter, which was commissioned to capitalise on the critical and box office success of Hollywood’s first major vampire film, Dracula, adapted from Stoker’s book five years earlier.
Hungarian-American actor Bela Lugosi made the titular Transylvanian count iconic, and deserves most of the credit for launching the countless movies, TV shows, books, comics and computer games that followed.
From The Lost Boys to True Blood, and Buffy to The Munsters, vampires have been a constant in the entertainment world, and Barrera has her own favourites.
“I like (Hugh Jackman’s 2004 action-horror) Van Helsing,” Barrera confided over a Zoom call.
“Let the Right One In was also a movie that I really loved, both the original and then the remake with Chloe Grace Moretz.”
There is, however, one famous vampire franchise the 33-year-old actor is not as eager to sink her teeth into.
“I was never a Twilight super fan,” she admitted. “It was my teenage years with Twilight, so it was inevitable to watch them.”
In Abigail, Barrera plays Joey, a disgraced former army medic, whose battle with drug addiction has seen her turn to crime to build a stable life for her child.
Chasing what should be an easy payday, she joins a motley assortment of crooks for a straightforward kidnapping with the promise of a big ransom.
The only problem is the kid they snatch, Abigail, played by Irish actor Alisha Weir, is the daughter of a powerful vampire crime lord, and is partial to a wee dram of blood herself.
What follows is reminiscent of Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs, only with considerably more gore, courtesy of the trademark aesthetic of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the co-directors of instalments five and six of the Scream franchise.
That last bit adds even more interest to Abigail, given Barrera was fired from Scream VII last year, after the film’s producers took offence to the actor posting pro-Palestine messages on Instagram.
Shortly after that departure, Scream co-star Jenna Ortega, who Barrera regards as a little sister, also withdrew from the project, citing a scheduling conflict with season two of her hit series Wednesday.
Despite the controversy, several members of the Scream franchise turned up to support the Mexican actor at the Los Angeles premiere of Abigail last week, including David Arquette and Skeet Ulrich.
The star has plenty of support in Australia, too, after venturing Down Under during the pandemic to make Carmen with Hollywood it boy Paul Mescal.
It’s fair to say that experience left a mark on Barrera as deep as any vampire fang could.
“I remember the Arnott’s Shapes,” she recalled. “Chicken Crimpy was my favourite – iconic.”
Keeping any food down during Abigail may prove a challenge for the weak of stomach, because the movie gets progressively more gruesome as it goes along.
Co-star Dan Stevens, who came to fame playing Matthew Crawley in Downton Abbey, told the UK’s Radio Times that it was “the bloodiest film” he’d been in.
“We exhausted Ireland of its supply of movie blood,” Stevens said. “We had to get special shipments in from outside, there were literally thousands and thousands of gallons used.”
And a vast majority of it ended up on Barrera and Weir.
“When my arm got exploded, that was really, really strange.,” Weir told The Sunday Times. “Because, halfway up my arm, they had a fake arm there, and then my actual arm … I put it behind me – it looked really real, and it was really gross.
“The blood cannons as well as stood out for me.”
“The blood cannons were awesome,” Barrera agreed.
Exploding arms and blood cannons are quite a change for Weir, who broke out in the lead role of the 2022 adaptation of Matilda the Musical.
More recently the 14-year-old was seen in Australian cinemas opposite Oscar-winner Olivia Colman and Jessie Buckley in Wicked Little Letters.
“I’m so grateful for all the people that I’ve gotten to work with so early in my career,” the Irish actor admitted. “One of my favourite actresses is Saoirse Ronan, I really look up to her and I think she’s an amazing actress, so I’d really like to work with her (in the future).”
As for Barrera, she’s focused on putting the off-screen drama of the Scream sacking behind her, which shouldn’t be difficult given her prodigious talents.
With a background in musical theatre, she was an scene-stealer in the 2021 adaptation of the Lin-Manuel Miranda musical In the Heights, and has another enticing project currently in post-production, The Collaboration, in which she stars opposite Paul Bettany and Jeremy Pope.
That film is a biographical drama about Andy Warhol’s collab with Jean-Michel Basquiat in the 1980s.
“I think I’ve done a pretty good job up to now in my career of doing very varied projects,” Barrera said.
“Because every role uses different muscles, and so I think it’s important to keep it interesting and to keep it interesting also for the audience.
“Keep them on their toes, sort of like, ‘You don’t know me, you don’t know what I’m gonna do next’, like, it’s gonna surprise you always.”
With Abigail Barrera has certainly done that.
Abigail is in theatres now.