ANNABELLE and ANNABELLE: CREATION: A DOUBLE BILL OF SUPERNATURAL HORROR FILM REVIEWS BY SANDRA HARRIS. ©
ANNABELLE. (2014) DIRECTED BY JOHN R. LEONETTI. PRODUCED BY JAMES WAN AND PETER SAFRAN. STARRING ANNABELLE (seriously...?!) WALLIS, WARD HORTON, ALFRE WOODARD AND TONY AMENDOLA.
ANNABELLE: CREATION. (2017) DIRECTED BY DAVID F. SANDBERG. PRODUCED BY JAMES WAN AND PETER SAFRAN. STARRING ANTHONY LA PAGLIA, MIRANDA OTTO, SAMARA LEE, STEPHANIE SIGMAN, TALITHA BATEMAN AND LULU WILSON.
Who the f**k needs Elf On The Shelf when you can have Annabelle, the hideous olde-timey doll in the wedding dress who just will not die, no matter how hard you try to dispose of her? She makes Barbie and Sindy look like empty-headed, self-centred clothes horses, which of course they were anyway, lol.
I'm a big fan of James Wan's brilliant THE CONJURING movies, so I was thrilled to get both ANNABELLE and ANNABELLE: CREATION for Christmas this year. I could not wait to watch 'em. I sat down amidst the wrapping paper and open boxes of mince pies to view 'em immediately in all their grim, gory glory. Let the festive season commence...
ANNABELLE is one of my favourite kinds of horror movie, where a couple are having a baby and something evil is after the baby because it's looking for a human host, and what's more fun for a demon to corrupt than an innocent baby, just starting out in life?
I've seen this kind of movie a lot though, the most recent one I think being called STILLBORN. Film-makers use this plot a lot. It gives 'em a chance to use baby monitors that pick up demonic mutterings and baby-cams that capture the demonic entity on film, much to the horror of the new mother, whose husband and family members generally tend to think she's suffering from post-natal depression. Either that, or she's gone plain loopy and the baby isn't safe with her.
This plot is used a lot because it's great fun to watch and, presumably, to make. For this reason, I didn't find anything terribly new in ANNABELLE, even though I enjoyed it immensely. No baby monitors or baby-cams here because it's the 'Sixties, even though it didn't really feel like the 'Sixties. It felt much more like modern times, and the couple, Mia and John Form (good job Mia wasn't called Klora or Chlora or even Boddie...!), don't look very 'Sixties-ish at all.
Anyway, we're told it's the 'Sixties and that there are a lot of Satanic cults about, like the Manson Family. Mia and John have the bad luck to be living next door to the people who will be brutally murdered by cult member Annabelle Higgins, who's coincidentally connected to the vintage porcelain doll called Annabelle which John has given his wife as a present for the baby.
What the baby's supposed to do with a big ugly doll like that we're not told. And what if the baby had been born a boy, anyway? Fine present it'd have made then. No, wait, I'm only perpetuating negative stereotypes here by presuming that dolls are for girls and, um, trucks and trains and things are for boys. Forget I said any of that. And don't report me to the PC police, I beg of you. I'm in enough trouble with them already for saying that men are better than women at getting the lids off jars. Well, they are...!
Anyway, the cult-ish murders at the house next door set off a chain of events that convince Mia that a demon from another world is trying to steal her baby's soul. Her hubby is gonna take some convincing, but then hubbies always do, the narrow-minded cusses. Too busy wondering if their secretaries will bang them without too much woo-ing on their parts or whether they need more lighter fluid for the barbecue this coming weekend, that's their trouble.
There's nothing really new here as I said, except for the fact that we're meant to think that the plot is set in the 'Sixties. If the budget had stretched to some 'Sixties-looking outfits or furnishings, I might have been more easily convinced.
I loved the bit where Mia is trying to escape the demonic-looking figure in the basement of her apartment building but the lift keeps bringing her back to the basement. There are a couple of good jump scares here like that but, if you're anything like me, you learn to identify where they're going to pop up next and that kind of takes the fun out of it. Or maybe it makes it more fun for some peeps, I don't know.
ANNABELLE: CREATION came out in 2017 and endeavoured to tell the back-story of the ugly doll named Annabelle. She was crafted by a doll-maker in the 'Forties for his daughter Bee, who was tragically killed in a car accident at the age of only seven.
Twelve years later, in 1955, the doll-maker and his by now reclusive and bedridden wife open their home to a nun and six young girls whose orphanage has shut down. Their house is huge, rambling and isolated and filled with scary passageways, darkened alcoves and mysteriously locked doors. 'Tis the perfect setting for a good old-fashioned haunting...
The nun is a sexy young Latino lady who doesn't look like a 'Fifties nun at all and the girls all look and talk as if they've just this moment come off Facebook or Instagram to look for their cellphones. They're all way too confident and modern-looking, especially the two dark-haired girls Carol and Nancy. They look like the kind of girls who'd be the Queen Bees of the rich and popular bitchy girls' clique in high school. The blonde girl with polio, Janice, she's believable enough. Which is kind of handy as she's actually the star of the show here.
James Wan, if you're going to persist in setting your fabulous films in days-of-yore, I'm going to have to insist that you do some research first. Try Wikipedia, or there are even these things called books- that's right, b-o-o-k-s, books- that some of us still use...!
I know, I know. The cheek of a nobody like me telling off a big hotshot director-producer like James Wan. Still, film-makers have responsibilities, you know. They can't just give us gruel and tell us it's caviar without providing us with some proof of the pudding, can they?
Anyway, the arrival of the girls, filling the house and all its nooks and crannies with oestrogen, awakens a nasty demon that's been dormant since the death of little Bee. Just what devilish entity did Bee's parents Samuel and Esther call upon when their beloved daughter died, and what exactly what does it want from the young orphans now...?
There are some great scary moments set in the dead little girl's bedroom, where the old doll Annabelle is stored in a locked closet wallpapered with pages torn from the Good Book. The Bible, I mean, not HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX, although that's a good book too. The old toys and the old dolls' house are all gorgeous and look well-crafted.
What I don't understand is why, if it's only the doll that's possessed, there's also an evil scarecrow out in the barn and an evil well (RING, much?) elsewhere on the property. And what does the Evil Nun from the earlier films have to do with the price of potatoes? James Wan, I think you just like to throw everything, including the kitchen sink, into your movies and see what sticks. You're a naughty, naughty boy but you're super-rich so we'll let it go...
I liked Miranda Otto here as the disfigured Esther Mullins. She played the woman in THE LORD OF THE RINGS who wanted Aragorn but Aragorn only wanted old droopy-drawers Liv Tyler and her Elvish bug-a-lugs and unintelligible whisperings. Ms. Otto was also great in WAR OF THE WORLDS, playing Tom Cruise's pissed-off ex-wife.
I loved both these ANNABELLE films. They're confusing and messy in places but still well worth a watch, especially for fans of THE CONJURING movies. Can't wait for the next instalment. Annabelle, I presume you'll be needed again so don't stray too far from your phone. After all, we can't possibly have a new James Wan film that doesn't include all the various odds-and-ends from all his other movies, can we...?
AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY OF SANDRA HARRIS.
Sandra Harris is a Dublin-based novelist, film blogger and movie reviewer. She has studied Creative Writing and Film-Making. She has published a number of e-books on the following topics: horror film reviews, multi-genre film reviews, womens' fiction, erotic fiction, erotic horror fiction and erotic poetry. Several new books are currently in the pipeline. You can browse or buy any of Sandra's books by following the link below straight to her Amazon Author Page:
http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B015GDE5RO
You can contact Sandra at:
http://sandrafirstruleoffilmclubharris.wordpress.com
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