Annabelle Comes Home * (2019, Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson) – Movie Review

Screenplay-writer/director Gary Dauberman’s 2019 horror thriller Annabelle Comes Home is a weak and cheesy Conjuring Universe episode, starring Mckenna Grace as Judy, the young daughter of Lorraine and Ed Warren.

The Seventies demonology couple take possession of the Annabelle doll, shove it in a glass case in their locked basement safe house room, and then promptly go off, carelessly leaving their daughter in the care of an empty-headed teenage baby-sitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman).

Mary Ellen’s annoying, pushy and nosy friend Daniela Rios (Katie Sarife) turns up, and then Judy and Mary Ellen promptly go off, leaving Daniela alone in the scary Warren house to find the keys to the basement room and open the glass case and release the Annabelle doll, a conduit for the demon.

As this is supposedly based on a true story, the screenplay by Dauberman and producer James Wan (story) lacks more or less any credibility at all. It is unconvincing and lame, though admittedly there are plenty of moments when girls the age of the teenage baby-sitter can have a scream, even if the doll itself is extremely unscary looking, and the creepy doll / demon / monster scares are mechanical, repetitive and over-familiar. It feels like another franchise that has run its course and needs to be put to rest.

The best bit is the start with the always good value Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as the Warrens. But, once they leave the picture after about 15 minutes, it takes a dip and never recovers, with its boring young protagonists and dreary, slow pace, and lack of logic in people’s behaviour or anything new to add to the Conjuring Universe. The two things it needs to be – intense and creepy – evade it almost entirely. The level of horror violence and terror is strictly PG certificate, though mystifyingly it has a 15 in the UK and an R rating in the US.

It is mostly filmed on just the single house set, and mostly with just the three young actors, so it looks as cheap as chips, though it cost an extraordinary $27,000,000. It is filmed as murkily as hell by Michael Burgess, so it looks murky and grungy, but to be fair that is probably deliberate so we cannot see too much of what is going on. Joseph Bishara’s score is not up to much either.

The Warrens do return for the final wrap-up of the movie, which is silly and sentimental, and truly unconvincing, giving good actors Farmiga and Wilson headaches to perform.

Producer Wan needs to pep this up a lot for the next Conjuring spinoff about the Werewolf from Annabelle Comes Home. On the other hand, American and worldwide box office is healthy, so why try to fix the holes in a winning formula?

It is the third Annabelle film, following Annabelle (2014) and Annabelle: Creation (2017).

It is the director debut of Dauberman, after writing the screenplays of Annabelle (2014) and Annabelle: Creation (2017), It (2017) and The Nun (2018).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Movie Review

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