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The original Annabelle, while not an audience favorite, is one of my favorites in The Conjuring franchise because it is bare bones scary. It takes the scary doll concept, and does something kind of new with it.
Synopsis
Annabelle follows a new family of Mia (Annabelle Wallis) who is a pregnant homemaker in the 60’s, and John (Ward Horton) who is a new doctor at a hospital. John gets the Annabelle doll for Mia, who is a doll collector as a present, and very soon the couple find themselves with more doll than they bargained for!
The Annabelle doll seems to attract bad luck at best and demons and killers at worst. As the family finds themselves constantly the target of misfortune and terror they begin to realize that the doll is at the center of the horrors being inflicted on them.
The family reaches out for help to the local priest, who is surprisingly well versed in dealing with “demons and shit”, and he tells them that the doll basically is a lieutenant of hell and wants to grab their newborn’s soul for satan.
Review
I don’t get the hate for this movie, I think it’s one of the strongest in The Conjuring franchise, and does a great job with disturbing themes and spooky jumpscares. Annabelle does an admirable job of keeping tension high and the scares are legit. The two real issues I take with this film are the rather lackluster ending and the total lack of levity or humor.
If you are looking for a good, formulaic horror movie, Annabelle fits that bill nicely.
Score
7/10
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Michael says
Annabelle is definitely better than Annabelle Creation. I agree that Annabelle does have a cheesy ending however the scares are soooo much better. Annabelle kinda give me Rosemary’s Baby vibes with the whole theme of sacrificing a baby. I just feel like there was too much going on in Annabelle Creation and the plot was not as strong. Also I am not a huge fan of child actors although they didn’t do too terrible of a job. The plot was scarier because the protagonist was more vulnerable and more isolated as opposed to all the girls in the Creation movie. Annabelle is also more anxiety inducing cause initially no one believes the main character and only the black lady can help. Even the priest is murdered! But yeah that’s all I have to say about it.
I love you guys. Stop burping.
BEN WISE says
I LIKE THE ANNABELLE MOVIES LIKE 1-3 ALOT I HOPE THEY CAN DO THE EXTENDED CUT I LKE THE NEVER BEFORE SCENE FOOTAGE TO BE SCARY