Annabelle: Movie Review

For me, last year’s “The Conjuring” from director James Wan was one of the best horror films in years. It had a great cast, a great look, and it was actually scary. One of my favorite elements from that film was the opening sequence in which we were introduced to a possessed doll named Annabelle. The doll was terrifying and the ten minutes we spent with it was all we needed. Because “The Conjuring” was a massive success critically and financially, the studio decided to do a spin-off focused on the origins of the doll. What we get is a prequel that looks decent, but is hardly scary and even worse, pretty damn boring.

“Annabelle” takes place a year before the events in “The Conjuring”. John (Ward Horton) and Mia (Annabelle Wallis) are young couple are about to start their family with a baby on the way. Mia loves antique dolls and the baby’s room is filled with them. As a gift, John gives Mia a doll that she has searched many years for to go with her set. Mia loves the doll, but when the spirit of a deranged cult member takes possession of the antique strange things start happening.

Director John R. Leonetti can make a film look pretty good on a micro-budget as he did with “Annabelle”. The filmmaker has worked as a cinematographer for nearly three decades. Unfortunately, as a director, his previous two feature films pretty much sum up his skills, 1997’s “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” and 2006’s DTV “The Butterfly Effect 2”. I would say “Annabelle” is only slightly less crappy than those two.

I am sure horror fans are going to turn out in droves opening weekend for “Annabelle” but I am confident that word-of-mouth will make it have a huge drop-off pretty quickly. Save your money and skip this one.

By: Marc Ferman