Oakland-born filmmaker Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and co-director Tyler Gillett spill a lot, and we mean a lot, of blood in “Abigail,” a lightning-paced comic/horror film landing in theaters on April 19.
But that is what fans have come to expect from pair, who are avid film fans, frequent directorial collaborators and two of the four original founders of Radio Silence Productions — an L.A. production house that’s gaining a reputation as a go-to joint for quality horror films, often with a twist or a comic bent.
With “Abigail,” it was the chance to play around with two colliding genres that appealed to Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett.
“It’s a heist movie that then becomes a vampire movie,” says Bettinelli-Olpin, who in a previous professional life was a guitarist and founding member of the 1980s East Bay punk/ska band Link 80. “For Tyler and I that was something that we’d never made — a heist movie — and we love that genre. So to kind of get to do that, then also have this vampire spin on it, that just takes it into the stratosphere.”
“Abigail” is also a spin on the early 20th-century O. Henry “Ransom of Red Chief” story in which a kidnapping victim is such a terror that it’s the kidnappers that are in real trouble.
“Abigail” keeps its premise creepy and simple and is — very, very loosely — inspired by 1936’s “Dracula’s Daughter”: Six kidnappers with extra-shady pasts nab 12-year-old ballerina Abigail and hold her captive in a creepy mansion, where they demand dad pay big to get her back. But Abigail (Alisha Weir) isn’t the innocent darling everyone assumes. She’s got serious daddy issues and a set of huge razor-sharp choppers she’s ready to sink into her captors.
The R-rated film also stars Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens, Kevin Durand, William Catlett, Giancarlo Esposito and features the late Angus Cloud, also an Oakland native, in one of his final roles. (The “Euphoria” actor died at age 25 of an accidental drug overdose in Oakland in July 2023.)
Before “Abigail,” the multi-talented Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett applied a fresh coat of paint on the “Scream” franchise with their well-received 2022 fifth installment, “Scream,” and followed it up with “Scream VI” in 2023, also well-received.
Both “Screams” starred Barrera, the “In the Heights” actress who was later fired from the upcoming “Scream VII” due to her social media posts in support of Palestine.
Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett aren’t involved with “Scream VII” either; but that decision has nothing to do with the Barrera controversy. Bettinelli-Olpin, in fact, remains steadfast in his praise for Barrera, who is terrific as the likable but haunted Joey, a desperate mother trying to win her son back while dealing with child vampire who loves to pirouette before her meals.
“We just love working with Melissa,” he said. “We love her as a person. We love her as an actor. She gets what we’re going for. We’ve built up such a trust between the three of us.”
Working with troubled rising star Cloud was also an amazing but ultimately bittersweet experience.
“It was really special for me personally,” Bettinelli-Olpin said. “He was such a light all the time. He’s so authentic. He’s so charming. So funny.”
Both directors knew immediately that Cloud would bring something special to the part of Dean, an often zonked-out getaway driver who puts the moves on some others. He left such an impression that they dedicated the film to him.
His being gone hit both directors hard when “Abigail” had its world premiere April 6 as the closing night feature at this year’s Overlook Film Festival in New Orleans.
“We’ve seen the movie 150 times now,” he said. “But seeing it with an audience and realizing that his performance is really connecting with people and that they’re really loving it, but he’s not going to be here to see it is just really, really heartbreaking. But we hope that this movie helps his memory and his legacy (to) live on because we just think he’s so good.”
The horror genre, which seemingly got a boost from the pandemic, continues to attract loyal audiences, and the bulk of Radio Silence Productions features have been embraced by fans. The company made an impression from the start with the standout Halloween party segment in 2012’s horror anthology “V/H/S.” The team went on to co-produce the sequels — 2021’s “V/H/S/94,” 2022’s “V/H/S/99” and 2023’s “V/H/S/85.”
They contributed even more to the 2015 anthology film “Southbound” that featured Bettinelli-Olpin in a co-starring role in one of the two segments he wrote. It received positive notices; the directing duo’s 2014 feature “Devil’s Due” did not. Both bounced back in 2019 with the bloody and funny “Ready or Not,” starring a game Samara Weaving as a distressed bride-to-be who meets a bloodthirsty band of in-laws.
The horror genre has appealed to the 46-year-old Bettinelli-Olpin ever since he was young. ‘“The Twilight Zone” was a real touchstone for me and my dad when I was kid,” he says.
But it was his passion and talent for punk music that led the Bishop O’Dowd High School student to help found the Bay Area band Link 80 in 1993.
Bettinelli-Olpin played guitar, sang and co-wrote some of the songs for the band, which toured nationally. He was in the group from 15 until he was 19, and performed later with them on a few occasions.
The band was dealt a tragic loss when its talented lead singer Nick Trainer — son of author Danielle Steele — died from an overdose at age 19 after a long struggle with being bipolar.
Bettinelli-Olpin left the band shortly after Trainer’s death and ventured to UC Santa Cruz, where the idea of becoming a filmmaker took root.
“I didn’t know what I wanted to do at that point,” he recalls. “And then a friend was like, ‘Hey, there’s a film studies class here and you can go, and like, make movies.’ I don’t think I thought it was a realistic career, but I was a little directionless at the time.”
Since his other love besides music was film (Link 80’s lyrics sometimes reference films), he decided to enroll. And he got hooked.
The transition felt smooth since, he said, performing punk and making horror movies share many of the same attributes, and even parallel each other as professions.
“It feels like the same trajectory where I’m working with friends,” he said. “We’re all trying to make something that is energizing and a little subversive and kind of (messes) with the mainstream a little bit.”
Both music and film were very DIY ventures for Bettinelli-Olpin from the start. For making movies, it went something like this: “Let’s go get a camera. Let’s go shoot some stuff this weekend.” And then he and Gillett would post it come Monday on YouTube.
“It’s the same kind of work ethic that we had when I was doing punk rock that we still try to have today.”
Unlike the characters in many horror movies though, Bettinelli-Olpin doesn’t look back with fear about his formative years and his hometown. For him, it’s the polar opposite.
“I miss being there a lot,” he said of the East Bay. “It was just so special to me.”
And while he also misses playing music, he doesn’t mind doing without certain aspects of being in a band and touring around the countryside.
“Sleeping in a van for three months at a time?” he quips. “I don’t think I’m up for that anymore.”