Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
“Inside every ballerina’s heart, is the blood of a warrior.”
Ballerinas might looks dainty, and fragile, but they can also be pretty lethal if needed, so when a group of young dancers are trapped in a remote inn packed with shady criminals, the girls fight back hard to escape.
Created by Vicky Jewson (director) and Kate Freund (writer), the 2026 dark-action-thriller ‘Pretty Lethal’ stars Lana Condor, Maddie Ziegler, Avantika, Millicent Simmonds, and Iris Apatov as a group of ballerinas whose trip for a prestigious dance showcase at Budapest goes horribly wrong when their bus breaks down in the middle of nowhere.
The girls along with their dance instructor miss Thorna (Lydia Leonard) start walking in hopes of hitching a ride to the city and walk into a hotel called Teremok Inn run by Devora Kasimer (Uma Thurman), a former prima ballerina, and a current crime boss of sorts. When the young women become witness to a violent murder at the inn, they realize they’re not going to walk out from the place and must put their personal differences aside to fight their way to freedom against Hungarian mobsters.
‘Pretty Lethal’ is a little like the horror-thriller ‘Abigail’ which was about a group of seasoned criminals kidnapping a little ballerina for a hefty ransom, only to realize they’ve messed with the wrong kid, because she turns out to be a powerful vampire. The ballerinas of ‘Pretty Lethal’ do not have supernatural powers, but they’ve got bite in their personalities and know how to work their legs like weapons.
Maddie Ziegler plays Bones, the unofficial leader of the group in ‘Pretty Lethal’. Bones is the most decisive in the group, with her survival instincts instantly kicking in, as she is the first one to realize that Devora and her minions are probably going to kill the girls off. Lana Condor sheds her cutesy ‘To All The Boys…’ image to play Princess, the bitchy, selfish snob of the group. Bones and Princess are introduced as rivals who cannot stand each other, but when faced with a ‘life and death’ situation, they synchronize to beat and slash the hell out of the villains.
Millicent Simmonds, who shot to fame playing Emily Blunt’s deaf daughter Regan in the ‘A Quiet Place’ horror films, plays the deaf dancer Chloe, while Iris Apatow portrays her protective sister Zoey. Avantika (‘Mean Girls’/’Big Girls Don’t Cry’) completes the group as Grace, a highly religious and righteous young dancer, who seems like a screaming liability at first, but gets her act together and kicks some serious butt, along with her friends. For instance, all of them strap on blades on their legs to attack opponents.
Uma Thurman is perfect in her antagonistic part as the mysteriously intimidating mob boss Devora, with her own personal beef with another powerful gangster. It’s sheer bad luck that gets the poor young ballerinas get entangled in Devora’s dangerous world of guns and violence. So as a viewer, you can’t help but root for the ballerinas to survive, no matter how far-fetched the battles are.
If you’ve seen the trailer for ‘Pretty Lethal’, the film delivers exactly what it teases – an over the top, not too serious, and darkly comedic action thriller where a group of pretty ballerinas take down grown men. The sequences where the young women team up and use ballet as action moves are absolutely hilarious and entertaining. They make the violence looks gracefully artsy, and amusing. I would watch a part 2 too! There’s definitely plenty scope for a sequel or an entire mini-series, with more blood, blades, and ballet.
Watch ‘Pretty Lethal’ on Prime Video.
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