Annabelle Comes Home (Review)
Annabelle Comes Home Proves The Conjuring Universe has Hope.
The Conjuring films franchise has struggled with spin-offs over the years with movies like The Curse of La Llorona and The Nun leaving audiences disappointed. However, the cornerstone of their shared universe, Annabelle, manages to break the trend with Annabelle Comes Home. The film plays at times like a focus group for more potential spin-offs (though there are already quite a few in the works), it manages to create enough memorable and creepy moments to be a pretty decent horror film all on its own. There are a lot of ideas used in Annabelle Comes Home and I have to admit, I liked them all.
For those of you who haven’t followed any of the films of The Conjuring universe, they all, in one way or another, tie back to the Warrens (played by Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson). The pair were some of the foremost experts on demonology and the occult and traveled the world investigating cases. In their travels, they came across a number of cursed, haunted, and ritualistic objects, that were so dangerous that the Warren’s took them home in order to keep them under lock and key. Now, if you told anyone about this in real life, they probably wouldn’t try to go messing about in that room. This though is a horror movie, so you know that someone is going to open up a whole can of malevolent worms by dicking around with these objects. The end result sucks for them but proves to be quite fortunate for fans of horror as we get to see some pretty incredible evil entities go after a pair of babysitters (Madison Iseman and Katie Sarife) try to survive the night with the help of the Warren’s daughter, Judy (McKenna Grace).
Horror movies are driven by stupid decisions. After all, pretty much none of them would be possible if any of the terrified victims actually stopped and used their brains. Of course, Annabelle Comes Home has an initial stupid moment where one of the teens decides to go messing about with forces they don’t understand, but even this moment is explained by her seeking to make contact with her recently deceased father. Yeah, it’s still stupid, but it’s a forgivable kind of stupid. From that point forwards the film has a few moments tossed in to build tension, but for the most part, it’s nice to see that the characters don’t act like complete idiots just so they can be used as cannon fodder against the spirits. Because of that, it’s easy to actually connect with them as see them as victims not of their own stupidity but of the unforeseeable consequences of their actions. The reason I mention this is because it’s kind of rare to find characters in a horror movie that you actually start to care about, and that little something extra is what helps elevate a film from a few jump scares to an edge of your seat thriller.
As I mentioned before, Annabelle Comes Home feels like a focus group for more potential spin-offs in The Conjuring shared universe. Normally, I would see a pretty blatant attempt like this as insulting, but James Wan found an effective way to do. The creepy doll Annabelle might be at the center of the story (it is her movie after all), but the film introduces a number of new creepy items and entities who’s backstories I’d love to see. There’s a cursed wedding dress that drives the women who wear it to violence, a terrifying re-imagining of the classic Ferry Man who ushers souls into the afterlife for a price, and suit of samurai armor that echos the terrible screams of its victims from centuries ago. Needless to say, there are more than enough creepy elements to create a terrifying gauntlet for these teens to overcome. However, with all the scary ghosts and ghouls running around, Annabelle Comes Home doesn’t forget how crucial humor is to offset the terror. The film uses it effectively from time to time to lure the audience into letting their guard down just so it can scare them again and again.
Now, I’m not going to try to argue that Annabelle Comes Home is a truly great movie by any stretch of the imagination. However, it has some pretty solid performances from the main group of actors trapped in the house for most of the movie. Nothing that would win anyone an award, but for the characters they’re playing and the genre this film is in, I have to say I found myself really enjoying their work. The production values used in the film echo the period of the time (the film takes place in the 1970s) without making it feel too dated. I was especially impressed with the layout of the Warren’s home which starts the film as just another ugly 70s home with shag carpets and plenty of wood paneling and slowly turns into a twisted labyrinth that the characters find themselves trapped in. While the outfits are a bit cheesy at times, they aren’t distracting and seem to really take into account the personalities of the characters wearing them more than just focusing on fashion. All in all, I think director Gary Dauberman did a pretty damn good job directing his first horror film and I hope he teams with Wan more in the future to expand this shared universe.
Annabelle Comes Home won me over not just because it’s a solid horror film, but because it’s also a really creative one. I love seeing well-crafted concepts brought to life on the big screen, especially because so many horror movies take brilliant ideas and botch them terribly in the execution. This is easily my favorite spin-off in The Conjuring films and I think that fans will really enjoy it. I know people in the audience laughed, screamed, and whispered constantly to reassure themselves when I saw it, which are all telltale signs that a horror movie is doing its job. So, if you’re a horror fan like I am, then you should definitely check out Annabelle Comes Home. It won’t disappoint… Mostly because the bar for spin-offs has been so low.
