Tuesday 20 January 2015

Annabelle (2014)

Annabelle

IMDB rate: 5,5
Genre: Dolls, Ghost
Starring: Annabelle Willis, Ward Horton, Tony Amendola

Annabelle is the prequel for highly anticipated The Conjuring. To be honest, I wasn't a big fan of The Conjuring. I thought it was a reasonable movie, but nothing special although everybody seems to love it. I did look forward to Annabelle though, because the doll from The Conjuring was pretty scary looking and a movie about it would be amazing. I am a big fan of Dead Silence, which also happens to be made by the same director as The Conjuring, the amazing James Wan. Even though Annabelle is a prequel of The Conjuring, it's unfortunately not made by James Wan, and I think that's the biggest reason this movie isn't very good.
John Form has found the perfect gift for his expectant wife, Mia - a beautiful, rare vintage doll in a pure white wedding dress. But Mia's delight with Annabelle doesn't last long. On one horrific night, their home is invaded by members of a satanic cult, who violently attack the couple. Spilled blood and terror are not all they leave behind. The cultists have conjured an entity so malevolent that nothing they did will compare to the sinister conduit to the damned that is now... Annabelle..


I was very excited for Annabelle, the doll is scary looking and I honestly think the horror world lacks good scary doll movies. The Conjuring was a reasonable movie, so I had high hopes for Annabelle as well. But like I already mentioned, it was not directed by James Wan who definitely is the master of puppets in my opinion.

Annabelle was in my opinion a pretty weird movie, the movie had some troubles finding a direction and so it seemed like it just went all kinds of directions. There are scary dolls, ghosts, some sort of solid ghost, demons and weird children, it's a bit too much, and it seems like it all leads to nothing. I admit that it does have some nice scares, but for some reason they were not fitting scares for this movie. The dolls in this movie were pretty scary, but unfortunately they were hardly used. In a movie like this, when the camera focuses very long on a lifeless object you just expect that something will happen, the head will move or the doll will blink or something like that. And nothing similar to that every happens, biggest disappointment ever. Sure, it's not the most original stuff that could happen in a doll movie, but it's almost necessary to make the doll really seem scary. The doll floats once, absolutely not scary at all.


The acting was decent I think, Annabelle Willis (hah!) plays new mother Mia and she does a decent job playing the scared housewife. I had more respect though for Eddie Redmayne look-a-like Ward Horton who plays her husband John Gordon, he was pretty awesome I think. The one I appreciated the most in this movie was the baby though, not for her acting skills, but for her incredible adorableness :).

Annabelle is not a very original movie and not the fun prequel of The Conjuring that I was expecting. It's lacking an interesting story and the doll is just not made scary unfortunately. I think it could've been more interesting if made by James Wan which would've been the more logical director compared to John R. Leonetti. It's a very predictable movie, nothing special ever happens. Sure, it's made nice and there are some cool jumpscares but overall it's a very unimaginative movie which resembles Insidious a bit too much unfortunately.

My rate: 5/10

1 comment:

  1. Too bad they didn't take more from the original real life story it was based on, which is awsomely terrifying , but well, great review anyway :D

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