Annabelle

James Wan’s Conjuring franchise is the horror version of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, encompassing a current total of seven feature-length movies, with three more in various stages of development or planning, and multiple short films. My only prior exposure to the series is the original Conjuring, which I watched years ago and didn’t like very much.

Annabelle, the second movie in the franchise, is a prequel/spin-off of the first movie depicting the origins of the creepy doll that showed up in a minor sub-plot there. Taking place some time in the late 60s--it’s after the Manson family has gained enough prominence to be on TV, but before the Tate-La Bianca murders--Annabelle focuses on fresh-faced all-American couple John and Mia Form, who are awaiting the birth of their first child while John starts a stressful medical residency. John buys the titular doll for Mia to round out her extremely creepy collection, but then a cult stages a violent home invasion, during which one of the cult members--a teenage runaway named Annabelle--ritualistically cuts her throat while holding the doll. Some of her blood gets on it and then boom! Possessed doll. That’s how it happens, folks. Generic poltergeist activity follows, which in movies is what demons do to troll people before they eat their souls.

As you may be able to gather from that plot description, this is an extremely silly movie. It actually starts out relatively low-key for a story about a cursed doll--the period setting isn’t really shoved in the viewers’ face apart from the wink-wink Manson references, and even the home invasion is pretty subdued--but before long it settles firmly into the groove of most mindless American horror movies: something scary happens, John doesn’t take Mia seriously, something more scarier happens, John takes Mia even more not seriously, they go to a priest who Knows About These Things, something even more scary happens, they meet a black woman who also Knows About These Things, big finale. If you’ve watched any Hollywood horror movies in the last fifteen years, you could write this in your sleep.

The movie is only theoretically about the Annabelle doll, which mostly exists to hang out in the background looking creepy while Paranormal Activity-esque haunting happens. This seems like a huge wasted opportunity; I’m not saying the doll should have been running around stabbing people like Chucky, but if I’m going into a scary doll movie then I want some genuine scary doll action.

Actually, the doll itself mildly strains credulity due to its appearance. The plot operates on the assumption that Mia likes the doll and is slow to pick up on the fact that it’s the source of the trouble, but, like...fucking look at it. When John finds it in an unexpected place for the first time, he just looks mildly confused and puts it back on its shelf. If that happened to me I’d burn down my entire neighbourhood.

Not much else to say about Annabelle, unfortunately. It’s the generic bag cereal version of a modern American horror movie, as forgettable as it is unremarkable. Somehow they made two sequels to it, including one that’s a prequel to this one, which was itself supposed to be a prequel to The Conjuring. In 2014 I joked about Paranormal Activity doing this, but I guess I only needed to wait three more years.

...Actually, you know what would make this post feel more substantial?

Annabelle: Creation

Taking place in like 1955 or something, Annabelle: Creation begins with a reclusive former dollmaker named Samuel Mullins taking in six orphaned girls and the nun who’s looking after them. Unbeknownst to his new guests, Samuel’s own daughter Annabelle died in an accident twelve years ago, and in the intervening years something sinister and supernatural happened that left Samuel’s wife disfigured and bedridden. Could it have something to do with the ghost haunting the house, or the demonic entity that’s also haunting the house, or the Annabelle doll--Samuel’s last creation--that one of the girls finds locked in a spooky closet covered in Bible pages? Probably!

You’ll notice right off the bat that this is basically a soft retcon of the first Annabelle movie, implying that the doll was evil long before the whole cultist blood ritual thing. It even re-explains why the doll is called Annabelle, even though the previous movie already explained why the doll is called Annabelle.

(Well, sort of. The movie does eventually loop around and reconnect with the first Annabelle, which I feel like it really didn’t need to because that movie is bad).

I’m fine with this, as Annabelle: Creation is a far more interesting movie than its predecessor. When it came out it got a reputation for being surprisingly good--it’s got a Metacritic rating of 62, which is quite high for a mainstream horror movie--and I have to concur with that. In fact, I think it’s probably the best Conjuring-verse movie I’ve seen so far.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not exactly The Shining in terms of cinematic horror craft, and it’s a modern blockbuster horror movie so it still gets really stupid and over the top in places, but there’s an artfulness to both the scares and the movie as a whole that’s rare in this segment of the genre. Some of the early scares, where you just see Annabelle’s ghost as a blurry figure in the background, are really unsettling in a very subtle way.

The large cast feels like it’s going to be a liability, but the movie actually does a good job of differentiating the six girls and establishing the social dynamics and relationships that have formed between them, even the ones that aren’t as critical to the plot. There’s also a neat Alien-esque twist where the movie makes you assume a specific character is going to be the protagonist, but then it turns out to be someone else.

Screenwriter Gary Doberman clearly has a better handle on writing children than many of his peers do, which I appreciated since horror authors writing about kids despite being terrible at it is a strangely common occurrence. There’s one bit in particular where two of the girls are having a tense conversation in extremely spooky circumstances, and one of them is absent-mindedly fiddling with a toy gun the entire time; as well as being hilarious, this is the sort of odd thing that kids do in real life that doesn’t often get represented in fiction. I also liked that the two older teenagers are portrayed as being super into boys without getting slut-shamed for it, which is, again, a weirdly common practice in horror.

If you’re curious about this whole Conjuring universe, I’d recommend skipping the other movies I’ve reviewed and giving this one a look. It’s solid.

And Then Ronan Died On The Way Back To His Home Planet

Unfortunately I’ve got to cut things short here. I had planned to review Annabelle Comes Home in this post, as well as The Nun and a few other things elsewhere, but my ever-present migraines are kicking my ass just now and I’m not up to more blogging before Official Spooky Season ends.

Luckily, Unofficial Spooky Season lasts as long as the light wanes and the days shorten, so if I feel like I’m up to it I might just drop reviews of that stuff whenever. Have a fun and Covid-free Halloween, everyone! If you’re in the US, make sure not to vote for Donald Trump!