Set before the events of On the Conjuring, 2013’s scariest ever horror film, Annabelle fast forwards to the ‘origin’ of the film’s doll. Annabelle is not Chucky killer doll for gore lovers but instead the infectious feminine demon possessed slash pictorial sulky Rose M.(more spoon fed than M. insidious and M. the conjuring in name) movie.
The equally persuading Annabelle Wallis plays (not Annabelle,) but Mia to be a tribute to Mia Farrow the star of Rosemary’s Baby. Just like in Rosemary’s Baby, Mia is required to be pregnant for most part of the movie and contend with strange happenings unfolding in the apartment where she lives. Her John played by Ward Horton is a doctor and comes home with something for the doll collection she is bringing together for the soon to be born child’s room. Yes, he gives her Annabelle, a Baby doll which is exactly like the one which belonged to her as a child. The doll Annabelle is just an ordinary doll, until two members of a cult break into their house, In turn causes the doll to become possessed by their demon.
Mia, on the other hand, manages to retain her sanity and her marriage to the supernatural events that pursue her relentlessly, even though they move to a different apartment. Mia enlists the help of two people, her church’s priest, Father Perez (Tony Amendola) and a tragic local bookseller, Evelyn (Alfre Woodard). There is a demon associated with the doll and this demon wants Mia’s child’s soul and would do anything to get it.
In a large, though not entirely perfect, way, Annabelle, directed by John R. Leonetti follows in the footsteps of such retro-style supernatural thrillers of the 60s and 70s as The Conjuring, aided by the more traditional less is more technique of producer James Wan. Scary music and sounds, strong breezes, deep dark rooms, slow-turning doors, etc, are a binge of simple easily used and efficient devices for serving up some suspense and scares. Annabelle the doll does not require much activity from the victim. All it has to do is sit there, on a shelf or a chair, and freak the victim out with its face.
The most infuriating thing, however, comes when the movie, towards the end, gives in to the use of CG demon makeup. Such an effect in fact makes one less immersed in the movie as far as it makes it much scarier or scarier than it really is in how it fits in with the rest of the movie. Sometimes it can be scarier just to wonder about what’s in the dark room with that character than to see it.
Annabelle commences in the year 1971 when the murder trials of Manson family members were ongoing. The heroes move from a situation where it is acceptable to leave one’s door unlocked to a one in which cults have been formed and the worst acts of brutality become common. There are those who do not believe in or fear the occult, for them and those like them, the more tangible atrocities of humanity are much more visceral than the magical evils.
The impunity in which the filmmakers are seemingly ignorant to the issues of racism and its very important context within the story strikes me as unnerving. I have to skirt this for fear of spoilers, but the development and arc of Woodards character will almost certainly rub some viewers the wrong way. It is 1971. It is only a few years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Junior and the race riots that terrorized Americans in the streets, yet 1971’s Evelyn cares about the health of just another young wealthy white couple. Look, I too have a great problem with the ending of the film, itself leading to these troubles again without being able to explain due to spoilers. I guess the most influential of such images would be easier to recognize to U.S. audiences for her role on The Tudors, rather than International release The Context, Annabelle Wallis does a solid job carrying the movie despite the relative blandness of her character. Probably that’s why however wooden she may be, such qualities are of no more interest than the Ward Horton’s perfectly bland egg husband character. No seriously, John makes a stick in the mud seem exciting.
The Decision
All in all, Annabelle is an average or so horror film but will more likely resonate with many of exorcism movies views. Its poor direction and way of handling the story is bore in itself if one gets accustomed to the expectations that The Conjuring might give.
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