Annabelle

I saw this in theater originally even had an odd experience with the theater halfway kinda brilliant for supernatural horror, I was even with someone but they were quite obnoxious. Anyway the movie is solid I understand the hate crazy enough the sequels are an improvement. The terror is the best thing about it and there's not much of it. I like how the main actress's name is Annabelle Wallis she's brilliant in a later role called Malignant!

I'm a horror movie fan - I'm a fan of the original evil dead trilogy to Romero to Poltergeist, korean horror, french horror etc... I'm also a fan of the new wave of horror. I'm a fan of the Conjuring as it was a film that made me think the art of a horror movie is back.

First off... this isn't made by James Wan... it's made by it's filmographer so off of the bat you're probably going to get some cool scenes but perhaps lack of character development. The budget of Annabelle is $5 million (that's 1/4 of what the Conjuring cost). Let me tell you the script is the weakest part of this film.

The movie starts off slow... this is where the film should really get you into the characters but there isn't much here, it's generic. It's the weakest part of the film. You have your standard couple... man goes to work, woman stays home and experiences weird stuff. The problem with this is that it's hard for you to bother to relate to the characters. This kind of kills the film for me. There were actually a lot that could have been explored but they didn't touch like the kids in the apartment.

Now the good. There is very little CGI - perhaps none. It's all old school. This is something that anyone could actually film.... chair moving, oven is on, someone standing there. It's good. It works. There's a great scene here with a baby. Are there enough scares? Not really. The pay off for the film felt like they might have fixed the movie for censors but even though the film is Rated R.

There's a lot missing in this film. It's not horrible. It's worth a rental. It's your average horror movie.

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.

Horror is one of my favorite movie genres. I really wasn't expecting to hate this as much as I did but it is astonishingly terrible. Really. I loved The Conjuring - this is nothing like The Conjuring. At all. It's a blatant cash-grab and a terrible one at that.

There is zero tension throughout this movie. Zero suspense. Everything is reliant on close ups of the dolls face to "creep" us out and really long periods of time where NOTHING HAPPENS. Literally, it's about this couple that we do not care about and their stupid problems which we care even less about. I don't know if they were trying to build suspense in these scenes but in order to build suspense you actually have to care about the characters. Or at least have, you know, suspense; a lingering sense of danger. This had nothing. And holy hell that ending.

The positives of this movie: The lead girl is beautiful. She's easy to look at. The soundtrack is pretty cool too. That's it. The characters are horrendous and the acting is even worse. Seriously if you're going to make a movie this awful at least have the decency to take an acting lesson or two. It's a dreadful watch. Please, don't waste your time with this cash grab sh*t stain. Don't give them the satisfaction. Watch something good like Sinister or 1408 - haunting movies done right.

I'm not the type to write long reviews & give too much unnecessary details.

But overall I'm giving this movie a 9 out of 10. I really enjoyed it and would probably watch it again as we get closer to Halloween. The movie had a good story line, and nothing stood out as being too fake or unrealistic.

This movie was very well made. I would definitely recommend to watch it this October during the Halloween season.

There were definitely plenty of "jumping in your chair" moments and plenty of people screaming in the theater. I think "most" people would enjoy watching it.