While babysitting the daughter of Ed and Lorraine Warren, a teenager and her friend unknowingly awaken an evil spirit trapped in a doll.
“Annabelle Comes Home” is the third installment in the “Annabelle” franchise and is probably the series’ least scary entry but that’s not to say it doesn’t have any good moments. On the contrary, director Gary Dauberman, in his feature-film directorial debut, conjures up enough devilish and ghostly imagery that even the most resolute moviegoers will think twice before turning off their lights at bedtime. I only wish the film had more of these moments, instead of intermittent flashes.
Set in the 1970s, Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson & Vera Farmiga) are paranormal investigators who have just picked up Annabelle, a worn-out porcelain doll that they believe is possessed by an evil spirit. They bring it back to their house and place it inside a box made out of sacred glass and put it in their basement, where other haunted artifacts reside and a local priest gives Annabelle a holy blessing. Shortly after, Ed and Lorraine inform their ten-year-old daughter Judy (Mckenna Grace) that they have to go out of town on business and that her favorite babysitter, Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman), will stay with her for the night until they come back the next day. Later that afternoon, one of Mary Ellen’s school friends, Daniela (Katie Sarife), drops by to help her bake a cake for Judy’s upcoming birthday and when she discovers the door to the basement room which houses all of the haunted artifacts is locked, curiosity gets the better of her. She snoops around and finds the keys and enters the room. After exploring the basement, she locates Annabelle and opens the glass case, unwittingly letting her spirit out, as well as the other spirits dispersed throughout the room. As night falls, the house comes to life and the three young women must band together and fight the powers of evil if they are to stay alive!
“Annabelle Comes Home” takes too long to ascend and once it hits its stride, it resets all over again. Typically in a horror film, there are scares throughout but we all wait for the inevitable finale and when “Annabelle Comes Home” reaches that point, instead of it feeling like one big denouement, it feels disjointed. One character battles an evil entity, beats it, and then moves on. Another character battles another specter, beats it, and then moves on and so it goes. Each character and the spirits they battle feel like they are in completely different movies and while the scare factor is amped up, instead of it remaining in place, after every ghostly encounter, the scare factor quickly loses momentum and starts over once more. By the time it reaches its peak again, we find ourselves growing tired of the gimmick and the film, overall, begins to suffer as a result.
“Annabelle: Creation,” the second movie in the series, was the scariest and most compelling to date and while “Annabelle Comes Home” infuses itself with some genuinely hair-raising and spooky moments, in the end, it is probably the least effective of the three “Annabelle” movies. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, who usually populate “The Conjuring” films, appear at the beginning and then again at the end but when they are offscreen, they are sorely missed. Our three young protagonists, Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, and Katie Sarife, are genuinely likable, even when they execute some of horror’s most clichéd tropes, going into a dark and scary basement alone, stepping outside in the dark while the house is surrounded by a ghostly mist, things characters only do in horror films but that need to be carried out, otherwise, we wouldn’t have a movie. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga just recently started filming on “The Conjuring 3” and because “The Conjuring” and “Annabelle” all exist within the same universe, I am always excited to see how they might cross over into each franchise. Even the recent far-superior Mexican horror movie, “The Curse of La Llorona,” exists within “The Conjuring” universe and we even see a quick flashback of a priest holding Annabelle so the possibilities are endless. Unfortunately, “Annabelle Comes Home” feels endless too but not in a good way.
In theaters Wednesday, June 26th
