“Annabelle Comes Home” marks the seventh installment in filmmaker James Wan’s supernatural horror series – a series that began with “The Conjuring” in 2013.
The scope of Wan’s finished products has a wide range of success; from the excellent “The Conjuring,” to last year’s woeful “The Nun.” “Annabelle Comes Home” lands somewhere in the middle. While it’s not an overly memorable horror movie that will leave you with chills long after watching, it’s a capable and fun scary flick that offers an enjoyable escape from the heat to the darkened comfort of an air conditioned theater.
Speaking to those who know the timeline of the series, “Annabelle Comes Home” is set just after the events of “The Conjuring.” For those that don’t know, it’s 1972 in New England, and legendary paranormal investigators, The Warrens (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) are taking the titular possessed doll back to their Rhode Island home where it will be kept under lock and key.
The opening sequence gets your spine tingling right from the start. It’s dark, it’s spooky, and Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are excellent components to each other, as they drive along a desolate road with Annabelle sitting stoically in the back seat. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson have stared together in both of the “Conjuring” movies (and again in 2020s third installment) and have such crafted an organic rapport that they can use to make any setting an effective one for scares.
It’s no surprise that “Annabelle Comes Home” is a standard haunted house type movie. The Warren’s depart town on a case, leaving behind their young daughter Judy (McKenna Grace) and teenage babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman). The story is isolated to a single night in the Warren’s small home, and this facet adds to the power of the plot. The cast is completed by Mary Ellen’s friend (Katie Sarife) and boyfriend (Michael Cimino) the latter of which is the necessary comedic element that alleviates the terrifying tension. The movie is paced well and falls in the perfect run time of 1:46.
“Annabelle Comes Home” is a safe horror movie. It’s almost family friendly in that the cast is primarily composed of teen stars, and you never actually think anything bad is going to happen to them. While jump scares can ruin a movie like “IT” that came with superior expectations, they work well here as the primary mechanic for the story. Yes there’s atmosphere and suspense, but unlike her foul-mouthed counterpart in “Child’s Play,” Annabelle is a static entity that relies on her own terrifying smile and unknown presence to make you squirm.
My complaints are limited to the weak plot – or lack thereof. Writer Gary Dauberman again teams with James Wan at the helm of the story, but unlike other films in the franchise, not a lot is going on. We put a creepy doll in a haunted house with three teenage girls and that’s basically all there is to it. The characters work well off each other and are given acceptable though somewhat convenient back stories that serve to advance the plot and do little else. And yes it’s a horror movie but you’ll find yourself screaming multiple times “why are you doing what you are doing!”
Nevertheless, the good outweighs the bad. I love the scenes inside the locked room in which the cursed artifacts from the Warren’s cases are on display. We get to see a few in action, and it leads to some of the more enjoyable moments in the movie, like an eerie interaction with an old television set or a cursed brides dress. There’s obviously a spin-off movie in the works for all of these objects – if there’s a way to make a dollar, James Wan will find it. But since I love these movies, I’m not complaining.
“Annabelle Comes Home” is a solid horror film, more fun than fright, more for entertainment sake than lifelong terror, but all in all enjoyable.
And just think – October 1st is only 90 days away.
