Abigail Directors “Felt a Responsibility” to Angus Cloud’s Memory While Editing New Movie

Universal Pictures’ highly anticipated vampire movie Abigail opens in theaters on April 19th and while fans are eager for the brand-new horror film from Radio Silence, the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett generally, it’s a little bittersweet as the film marks one of the final performances of the late Angus Cloud. The actor, best known for his role in HBO’s Euphoria, died last July at the age of 25. Now, Abigail directors are opening up about working on the film in the wake of Cloud’s passing.

“It was emotionally, it was hard, but there was also something that we really wanted to make sure that he was really showcased in the movie,” Bettinelli-Olipin told ComicBook.com. “It’s really easy to go in and cut the character stuff and the little beats that you maybe do or don’t need but for us, we were like, it’s so special anyways in a movie and then to have it be Angus’s last movie, we didn’t want to just short change that in any way. We felt a responsibility. And so, we really, we mined the footage, we made sure that we looked for everything from him. If there was any moment that was kind of special. is there’s a way to use it, is there a way for us to get this in because in a lot of ways you could watch this movie and know that we took extra care to make sure that the Angus stuff all lived and we even put a lot of stuff on, you know, the behind the scenes stuff because he was always making everybody laugh and so he’s in a lot of jokes. It’s just as much as we can do with this movie to help keep his memory alive.”

Cloud’s Abigail Role is One of His Final Performances

Cloud died last year at the age of 25. At the time of his death, he had completed work on Abigail which will stand as one of his final performances. He also was one of the stars of Euphoria. He played Fez in the HBO series, a role which was his first onscreen role and his portrayal was one of the most tweeted-about characters of the past decade. He went on to have appearances in the 2021 film North Hollywood as well as The Line. He also had appearances in some music videos, Noah Cyrus’ “All Three”, Juice WRLD’s “Cigarettes”, and Becky G & Karol G’s “Mamiii”.

What is Abigail About?

Here is how Universal describes Abigail: “From Radio Silence — the directing team of Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett behind the terrifying modern horror hits Ready or Not, 2022’s Scream, and last year’s Scream VI — comes a brash, blood-thirsty new vision of the vampire flick, written by Stephen Shields (The Hole in the Ground, Zombie Bashers) and Guy Busick (Scream franchise, Ready or Not).”

In addition to Cloud, Abigail stars Melissa Barrera (Scream franchise, In the Heights), Dan Stevens (Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire, Gaslit, Legion), Kathryn Newton (Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, Lisa Frankenstien), William Catlett (Black Lightning, True Story), Kevin Durand (Resident Evil: Retribution, X-Men Origins: Wolverine), as the kidnappers and Alisha Weir (Roald Dahl’s Matilda the Musical, Darklands) as Abigail.

The film is produced by William Sherak (Scream franchise, Ready or Not), Paul Neinstein (Scream franchise; executive producer, The Night Agent), and James Vanderbilt (Zodiac, Scream franchise) for Project X Entertainment, by Tripp Vinson (Ready or Not, Journey 2: The Mysterious Island), and by Radio Silence’s Chad Vilella (executive producer Ready or Not and Scream franchise). The executive producers are Ron Lynch and Macdara Kelleher. 

Abigail opens in theaters on Friday, April 19th.