Annabelle (2014)

<<

Conjuring Reviews

>>

While the first 'Conjuring' film did a great job of getting into my head, I sincerely cannot say the same for its first spin-off movie. This was always one I found kinda silly, and I'll get to why, but the biggest disappointment about it is that it just isn't that scary. The scariest scene in the movie actually involves living, breathing human beings, and nothing of the supernatural variety. That's just one example of why I think this is silly - it's a supernatural horror movie, and anything supernatural about it is... "meh."

It all begins in Santa Monica, CA, 1970, when medical student John Form comes home to his pregnant wife, Mia, with a gift in a bog box. Said gift is one of the creepiest dolls you've ever seen, meant to be a rare collector's item, and a gift for the new arrival. It's placed on a shelf in the nursery along with a collection of others, and sticks out like some sort of demonic sore thumb. Honestly, seeing them all together, it's like picking out a moose from a flock of geese or something. I get that there were probably rights issues for the use of an actual Ragedy Anne doll (as the real Annabelle is), but they could have toned her down, nonetheless.

Things are looking up, until we reach what I consider to be this chapter's most frightening scene, as Mia is woken out of her sleep from screams of terror coming from next door. Their neighbours are brutally attacked by a couple of cult members (very much reflecting the Manson family). To make a long story short, eventually one of the cult members, Annabelle Higgins (Keira Daniels) dies in the struggle, holding the doll. This, of course, gives us that copy-paste aspect from 'Child's Play' in which her spirit eventually possesses the doll.

It's not long before supernatural basics start occurring around the house, and they decide to make a move to Pasadena as a result. Mia asks John to get rid of the doll in the process, but upon moving, it finds its way back to them, despite John insisting he threw it away. Despite everything, however, Mia suddenly decides she wants to keep it around instead of being as terrified of it as she should be. To no one's surprise, a paranormal plague of events starts to happen to both Mia and her daughter, while John's just kind of along for the ride.

Beyond all that, the film pretty much unfolds as a series of horror cliches, and there's a pretty heavy focus on the Manson Family, whose real-life story is far, far more interesting and scary than anything this movie has to offer. There's a fair share of cheap jump scares, doors opening and closing, books falling off shelves and various other creepy things. But despite all of these odd occurrences, there's just nothing creepy about a doll who sits there doing nothing. I'm sure it must have worked for a few, but the first 'Conjuring' movie eclipses this massively in quality.

While the aforementioned break-in scene is well done as far as scares go, there might be only one other scene that comes close, involving an entity running at Mia. Otherwise, it feels like a lot of general spook house stuff, and it plays with that old worn out idea that whatever is inside Annabelle needs a soul, and the big worry is on Mia's baby, Leah. A lot of movies have done this in the past; even one of my favourite guilty pleasures from the past, 'Ghostbusters II.' I'm fairly certain that part of things was the filmmakers taking liberties to form whatever suspense they could with this doll.

Movies like this give me my reasons for not caring so much about a lot of paranormal titles. Sometimes things just get a little too cliche, and this was one such example. You'll also notice I haven't mentioned the Warrens (among other unmentioned characters), and that's because they're not a part of this. Personally, I just feel like its a good example of a bad second film in a franchise (a prequel in this case), and it pretty well remains the lamest of the batch, based on popular opinion. It's pretty bad, but considering some solid sequels down the line, it could simply be considered a "swing-and-a-miss!"

1/5

---