Cube Critics talk about ‘The Fall Guy’ and ‘Abigail’

Cube Critics watch a movie that is a love letter to stunt performers and a film about a kidnapping where — oops, the kidnapped child is a vampire.

The following are capsule reviews edited from the audio heard using the player above.

‘The Fall Guy’

This week, I caught “The Fall Guy,” a film that’s both a tribute to stunt performers and a spiritual successor to the 1980s TV series of the same name.

The movie follows Colt Seavers, an action stunt performer played by Ryan Gosling, who faces a challenging comeback after a severe accident.

His return to the stunt world is complicated by a project led by his ex-girlfriend, portrayed by Emily Blunt. As the story unfolds in Australia, Seavers gets entangled in a mystery surrounding the disappearance of the film’s lead actor.

“The Fall Guy” includes an enjoyable pastiche of major sci-fi and fantasy films like “Dune,” “Star Wars” and “Guardians of the Galaxy” in the film within the film.

The real highlight of “The Fall Guy” is its spectacular stunt work. The film features breathtaking sequences involving helicopters, boats and massive flames, showcasing the extraordinary talents and often overlooked contributions of stunt performers in the film industry.

— Jacob Aloi

‘Abigail’

“Abigail” is a wildly entertaining horror comedy that revolves around a seemingly straightforward kidnapping gone absurdly wrong: a team of kidnappers abducts a child who turns out to be not just any child, but a vampire ballerina.

The kidnappers find themselves trapped in a house with the vampiric child, who hunts them relentlessly.

This movie is unabashedly violent, yet the violence is executed in a slapstick manner that keeps the tone more comical than horrifying.

It’s a pure, over-the-top spectacle that involves balletic spins, flips and pirouettes. As Artemus Ward might say, if this is the sort of thing you like, you will probably like this.

Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett, the minds behind the clever “Ready or Not,” “Abigail” is an example of a new golden era of horror comedies.

This genre has seen a number of innovative films lately, including “Ready or Not,” where a bride is hunted by her new family in a spooky mansion; “Freaky,” featuring Kathryn Newton and Vince Vaughn in a body-swap slasher; “Happy Death Day 2U,” a murderous twist on “Groundhog Day”; and “Totally Killer,” which pairs time travel with serial killer thrills at an amusement park.

— Max Sparber