A review of ANNABELLE(2014) by Trevor Kennedy. Directed by John R. Leonetti. Starring Ward Horton, Annabelle Wallis, Alfre Woodard. John and Mia Form are a young married couple living in the late 1960s,and just moved into a new house. As a present to his doll-collecting wife, John buys the pregnant Mia a beautiful(ish) vintage and rare marionette(a rather creepy looking one at that too!). When their house is one night attacked by satanic cultists(one of who is suspiciously named Annabelle), it sets off a nasty chain of supernatural events which appear to be connected to the disturbing and spooky-looking doll, whom, it appears, is now a conduit for a deeply malevolent and evil demon who is after the soul of the Forms new-born baby. Apparently based on true events, this prequel to the very effective and well-done(if chock-full of horror cliches), ‘The Conjuring’, from last year, is essentially a remake of the classic ‘Rosemary’s Baby’ with shades of the original ‘Child’s Play’. The female lead is even named Mia, in an apparently obvious reference to Mia Farrow, the earlier film’s iconic star. Both pieces are even set in the same time period. ‘Annabelle’ is not a bad film in itself, but seems to rely too much on ‘jump-scares’, a worrying current trend in modern supernatural horror films. There is some dramatic tension build up, especially in a scene in the laundry room of the block of flats where the family move to, but it’s not really enough and in the end feels too tame and mainstream viewer-friendly, in an obvious effort to make more money at the box office, methinks. I also found almost all of the characters, with the exception of the priest and obligatory sympathetic supporting character, to be way too smug and annoying for words and was looking forward to seeing them killed-off in highly creative and disgusting manners. The ending was a bit of a predictable disappointment too. In addition, I felt it badly missed the two quite likeable paranormal investigators from the previous flick and should have probably went with the story of the nurses’ encounter with Annabelle, which was touched on in ‘The Conjuring’, instead of what they did. So is modern horror dead? I really hope not, but as a committed watcher and reader of all things macabre, I feel we need to get back to our more creative and no-holds-barred roots, with good and original storytelling/writing, tension, atmosphere and genuine twists and shocks prevalent. In short, we need to get away from Hollywood and its pandering to the PC crew. We need new blood(pun intended!), new writers, new concepts and more independent productions succeeding. But perhaps I am too much of purist and idealist and not living in the real world where money talks and genuine creativity takes a back seat? Hope for the genre will always spring eternal for me though. ‘Annabelle’ isn’t all bad, however, and a reasonably enjoyable evening’s entertainment, but its predecessor was much better and I reckon the makers could have done so much more with this new one.
Posted on: Mon, 13 Oct 2014 14:21:48 +0000
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