Annabelle

Re-watched this one recently and now I remember why it didn't really leave an impression like it's sequels. as the first of the trilogy it had the burden of building the characters and world up, which it failed to do. none of the characters felt fleshed out, leaving the viewer to not really care what happens to any of them. for most of the film you feel as if you're watching a slice of life film instead of a horror one. it finally starts to pickup halfway through the film although the ending doesn't really feel earned and the conflict happens and dies out too quickly as if it remembered it had to happen. the second film did a way better job at being a spin-off film for this important entity of The Conjuring universe.

Annabelle wants to ride the success of The Conjuring, but ends up missing everything that made it work. Where The Conjuring had heart, atmosphere, and characters we cared about, Annabelle feels empty - a horror movie that goes through the motions.

There's no meaningful character design, no suspenseful buildup, and almost zero emotional connection to the central couple.

The plot is thin, the mystery is practically nonexistent, and the scares rely entirely on loud stingers and shadowy figures popping up on cue.

It feels like the filmmakers knew the story wasn't strong enough, so they overloaded it with cheap jump scares to keep audiences alert. But without tension or stakes, those scares don't land - they just get repetitive.

Annabelle has the creepy doll, sure, but without compelling storytelling, it's just a prop in a movie that forgets to build anything around it.

In the first, rather scary, scene in the Conjuring, featuring the Annabelle doll, I wondered, what kind of woman would ever buy a doll that creepy looking? Apparently no one. Since the real Annabelle was in fact a simple Raggedy Ann doll. This movie purports to tell the whole story behind the doll, almost none of which conforms with reality (meaning the "true" story as it was given to and told by the Warrens). We meet a bland, prosaic young couple about to have a child. The wife has a doll collection decorating the child's room (Before she knows if it's a girl or boy), and the husband buys her the Annabelle doll, which is supposedly an expensive collector's item meant to match two similar dolls. Following an attack by two cult members who lived next door, the Annabelle doll becomes possessed, doing usual ghost things like operating a sewing machine, and record player. Later, she seemingly tries to kill the baby in its womb, contradicting the later explanation that the doll is a demon host looking for an innocent soul. Luckily, a kindly mystical black woman owns a nearby bookstore with a well-stocked occult section. The wife and her friend discover the name of the cult to which the neighbors belonged, but use absolutely none of the information to defeat the doll. In fact, there are many threads that dangle and go nowhere. We meet two children who seemingly draw pictures of the baby being hit by a truck, and then the children are never seen again, and bear no relevance to the plot. The fact that the mystic new age black woman is willing to go to any length to protect this bland white family may strike some as offensive, especially since it appears nowhere in the actual story. Like most films of this nature, it is practically an advertisement for the Catholic Church and Christian religion in general. The Warrens also investigated the Amityville story, whose victims were also Catholic, and the book featured an introduction by a Catholic priest. Essentially, these stories say, for better or worse, that Catholics are the religion feared by the devil, and the only ones capable of eliminating supernatural threats from demons. The Warrens, in fact, keep the doll in a case protected with a cross, and blessed by a priest. As for the movie itself, it features a couple good jump scares. There are a couple scenes strongly reminiscent of Japanese horror (Dark Water and the Grudge especially). I've seen this type of movie done better and much worse. I have no idea why the R rating, except possibly the religious iconography and injury to a priest and pregnant woman. But honestly, this could play on television barely edited, if at all. You can definitely wait for this title on video.

Enjoyable horror flick that was pretty creepy and suspenseful with some good jump scares and jaw-dropping moments. also completely breaks the cliche of the annoying skeptical husband/boyfriend, that made me happy (2 viewings, 6/20/2020)

As a prequel and spin-off of The Conjuring – 2013's highly effective horror film – Annabelle does what it promises, even if it does so one jump and one jolt at a time. But that's all you get, jumpy scenes done to perfection, with little or no atmosphere and a story that disintegrates before it reaches a satisfying conclusion.

One of the most important aspects of The Conjuring and older sibling Insidious (both films directed by James Wan), is the cinematography and how it wreaks havoc with the viewer's peripheral vision. By this I am referring to events occurring off-center, or in some corner of the screen that is oblivious to on-screen characters but very obvious to the viewer. Consider a scene where a mother watches over her new born baby. The scene is shot in the living room where the right half of the frame is composed of the mother and her baby and the left half is a hallway that leads to other rooms in the house. Without shifting focus from the mother and child, we see something or someone lurking in the hallway behind; something that shouldn't be there in the first place. While this tactic is nothing new to horror-thrillers, it works for the whole purpose of inducing dread, thick and slow, before the actual jolt hits a few seconds later. The scariest scenes in Annabelle are made up of these moments, and at times we are left guessing what lurks in the corners. And is probably why cinematographer John R Leonetti of those preceding films is tasked with directorial duties in this film, while Wan himself is bumped up to producer. Leonetti plays it safe by treading down Wan's beaten path but without any surprises of his own.

Playing the aforementioned mother is Annabelle Wallis (freaky coincidence?) as Mia Gordon. Mia has a doll collection, one of which is the titular vintage doll gifted by her medical student husband John (Ward Horton). After surviving a horrific attack from a satanic cult, the Gordons have new guests that won't leave. At first Mia starts seeing things and becomes increasingly paralysed by fear while John begins to doubt her sanity. It's a stock approach to crying wolf in horror movies. It takes a while to dawn on them that something has latched on to Annabelle, making the doll a conduit with increasing intent on harming them and their new born baby. Consultations with a librarian and a priest reveal far greater implications, thus leaving these young parents to ward off hell by going right through it.

On one hand, the look and feel in this film is a copy-paste version of Insidious, but concentrated with sporadic moments of numbing fright. We've seen it before in classic horror films – young parents who must literally go through hell to save their child's soul. It's the same concept here but effective enough for a low budget horror film. Like a stern disciple, Leonetti is on par with Wan's technical approach. Cinematography, hair raising sound design (including deliberate moments without sound), and some decent tension will garner a few screams from the audience, but that's about it. On the downside, there isn't much of a story for a script based on real events and don't even expect anything along the lines of an animated 'Çhucky' doll. It's not about what the doll can do but about what's in the doll -If only they had built on that frame of thought. After some well-timed jump scares in the first half, all we are left with is a murky conclusion owing to underwritten supporting cast members whose inclusion leaves the ending stale and cheap.