Mark Reviews Movies: ANNABELLE COMES HOME

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 26, 2019

The third movie about the demon-inhabited doll of the title, Annabelle Comes Home isn't so much a story as it is a workshop for ideas for future entries in a franchise. That might sound overly cynical, but how else can one respond in the face of the seventh installment in an extended universe of horror movies?

These franchises used to be simpler: You take a single character concept—a supernatural killer or some other unnatural creature—and keep making movies in which the villain terrorizes and kills people. After the (worthy) success of The Conjuring and its (also worthy) sequel, though, now we have spin-off movies, featuring some otherworldly being that was introduced in one of those movies or which is somehow connected to the world in which they exist.

The doll of this second sequel in the first spin-off series, for example, was the focus of the prologue and the secondary threat in the third act of The Conjuring. We've also had a movie somewhat explain the origins of the creepy nun from The Conjuring 2, as well as another one about a ghoulish weeping woman, which turned out to be loosely connected to this bigger world of demons and ghosts. Undoubtedly, more sequels and new spin-offs will come.

Knowing how these movies have become an expansive franchise, one can't help but watch the third movie about the kind-of creepy doll Annabelle without seeing it as a preview of potential spin-offs to come. Which of these new creatures or cursed items will tap into some primal or learned fear and become the central gimmick of yet another installment?

Will it be the Ferryman, a ghostly figure that looks and acts exactly and suspiciously like the Grim Reaper? Will it be the possessed wedding dress, which transform the wearer into a psychotic killer? Will it be the digital hellhound, which appears to be summoned from the pages of an old book before killing a single chicken and being defeated by an awkward teenager with an acoustic guitar? Stay tuned.

The movie itself, written and directed by Gary Dauberman (the screenwriter of the previous two entries in the spin-off series, making his directorial debut), never achieves a purpose beyond such teasing. It's a mish-mash of underdeveloped conceits, connected by a loose and common plot involving a child and two teenagers trying to survive the night in a haunted house.

The child is Judy Warren (Mckeena Grace), the daughter of psychic Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and demonologist Ed (Patrick Wilson), and the teenagers are Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman), Judy's babysitter, and Daniela (Katie Sarife), the babysitter's friend. The adult Warrens make what amounts to an extended cameo in the prologue (once again showing us how they obtained Annabelle), before leaving for a weekend trip and returning for the denouement—just to remind us that they were here in the first place.

After a glacially paced pair of openings, Daniela, looking for evidence that her dead father's spirit still lives on (In case one is wondering about the quality of the characters, she's the only one developed in any way), searches the Warrens' artifact room. She eventually unlocks the glass case containing Annabelle. The doll, of course, is a conduit for other evil forces (In case you'd forgotten that, this movie explains it a few times).

This unleashes all sorts of horrors—from the hellhound, to the dress, to the Ferryman, to a generic demon, to a possessed board game, to a killer telephone, to a television that shows what happens a few seconds into the future (the neatest of the various ideas), to probably half a dozen or more spooky things. Subsequently, the three girls and Bob (Michael Cimino), Mary Ellen's crush, are terrorized by the assorted ghosts, demons, monsters, and cursed things.

Dauberman takes his time in building up to the scares, although that doesn't mean he creates any tension. Perhaps the lack of suspense here is simply a matter of knowing how the beats of each scene inevitably will play, but there's also more to it. Such material is tough. We know the scares are coming, so a filmmaker can only rely on misdirection and timing to keep us on our toes. The first-time director obviously understands certain elements of good horror filmmaking (such as silence being as important as noise), but all of these scenes end up feeling like waiting for, not fearing, what's inevitably going to happen. When it does happen, it's exactly what we expect.

Even the best entries of this extended franchise have never been subtle. Annabelle Comes Home isn't, either, but instead of being unequivocal in its attempts to scare, it's primarily blatant in its existence as a sales pitch or market research.

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