Annabelle Comes Home

In 1968 Annabelle came home. She was a demonic doll with the ability to be a conduit for evil spirits who was found and taken by real life demonologists Ed (Patrick Wilson) & Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) to their home where she could be stored correctly. Religious rituals were held and the doll was placed behind consecrated glass. The world was now safe from her dangers. Until the teenager, Mary Ellen, (Madison Iseman) hired to babysit their daughter Judy (McKenna Grace) enters the picture along with her silly friends.

The latest installment in The Conjuring universe is very much a stopgap. It's a film that will have little effect on the main franchise (you know Judy is going to her get own spin off) going forward and it feels like a cheap and silly way to keep the franchise fresh in people's minds until The Conjuring 3 inevitably appears someday. It's a nothing film, a feature length episode of Scooby Doo that comes with it's own pesky kids. It's pure fluff that you'll struggle to remember in 2 days time. It has retroactively made both the last Annabelle film and The Nun look like solid movies and not the pieces of shit they were on release.

It's cheap looking, it's dull and it manages to hit every single haunted house cliche directly in the face. It's like writer/director Gary Dauberman was given a checklist of horror tropes and he managed to squeeze 'em all in. Jump scares that solely consist of loud noises, characters wandering off by themselves and most annoyingly, characters spotting all manner of spookiness but for some strange reasons deciding to keep it to themselves? Who would do that?? Why would you do that?? You're in a house owned by people who deal with the supernatural ffs, it's not like this stuff is a secret! People live to talk. All lot of problems in movie land would be instantly solved if folks just just use their words. I know it's not the most cinematic idea but jesus it would save a lot of frustration.

Worst of all it leaves it's best assets offscreen for about 75% of the movie. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson have always been the saving grace of the Conjuring movies. Their portrayal of the real life couple has always been the best aspect of the series. Him, funny but strong, her maternal but fierce. When they are onscreen is when the film is at its best. Because we've been with them on their crusade against evil since 2013 we'd want to feel involved but here we have to side with 2 new teenagers and a daughter played by a different actress (McKenna Grace) than before. It's a tough ask to care about any of it.

Then annoyingly, the film does start to get a bit entertaining in it's last 30 minutes or so. All the evil unleashed in the Warren household is unleashed and a dippy new beau (his cover of a Bread song is a film highlight) gets involved. Here we get a couple of laughs, and a bit of creepy imagery courtesy of weird 70's game boxes and of a demon called The Ferryman and the coins kept in his eyes glinting in the darkness but it just isn't half enough. These are scares we should have been getting 30 minutes earlier instead of having to sit through a load of prancing around in the dark and guff about psychic televisions. It all feels very cynical too when you release that the 3 or 4 new entities unleashed are all seeds being planted for future installments. For a franchise that has 3 spin-offs already it's kind of taking the piss.

Don't bother with this. You'll miss nothing. It's multiplex horror at it's broadest. If you've a scary itch needing to be scratched go see Midsommar instead.