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    Annabelle

    Reviewed by
    adamwatchesmovies@

    “Annabelle” is the kind of film that gives prequels a bad name. There’s nothing about this story that will wow you. To call it frightening on any level would be a stretch. When this picture was released in 2014, I meant to see it in the theater. I’m a huge fan of “The Conjuring” so how could I not be drawn to another entry in the series? Bad word-of-mouth convinced me to wait and I’m glad I didn’t catch it in the theater.

    In 1969, John and Mia Form (Ward Horton and Annabelle Wallis) are expecting their first child. After a violent home invasion, strange events suddenly seem to emanate from Mia’s prized doll Annabelle.

    Are you interested in this film? Then you better get yourself mentally prepared for some truly mediocre horror. Honestly, there’s nothing here that tells me it was written specifically for the Annabelle doll. The plot is very generic, with the husband being blissfully unaware that spooky stuff is happening around the house and the wife being haunted by visions reminiscent of countless other, better films. There’s no spine-tingling atmosphere generated, no interesting stylistic choices either. There are a couple of scenes here and there that are neat, but overall it’s a big disappointment.

    I knew the film was in trouble as soon as the Annabelle doll was introduced. I don’t know what you thought when you first saw it in “The Conjuring”, but I didn’t expect the doll to have been creepy from the get-go. I know that older dolls tended to have weird-looking faces that are a bit unnerving, but they still had horror movies in the late 60’s right? Who would look at this toy and say “Let’s put this in the baby’s room”? It doesn’t help that the origin of the doll is completely underwhelming. “Annabelle” is a shining example of why less is more in horror films. Knowing what is wrong with this artifact doesn’t make it more frightening, it allows the audience to go “Oh! So…. If I do X, then it would never bother anyone again right? ” I also found the conclusion to be a big disappointment. It’s like this film doesn’t trust its audience at all, they spoon feed you everything and honestly, it becomes dull.

    If you’re a fan of “The Conjuring”, you’re not missing anything by skipping out on this prequel/spinoff. None of these scenes compare to the ones that made the doll so iconic and spine-chilling in 2013. The studio might disagree because they managed to rake in millions of dollars off a low-budget horror film, guaranteeing us that we’ll see more films in the franchise. For us regular people, “Annabelle” is a big disappointment, a story that was better left untold. (On Ultraviolet, June 18, 2016)

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    adamwatchesmovies@  20.6.2016 age: 26-35 2,867 reviews

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