Annabelle

I think we can all agree up front that last year's The Conjuring did not exactly need a prequel focused on that creepy little doll that bookended that film.  But, if we must have one, then Annabelle is probably the best one we could hope for.  Even if it isn't as good as the movie that inspired it, it at least understands what made that one a success, and pulls off a few neat scary tricks of its own. 

Annabelle is set 10 years before The Conjuring, and tells us the story of how the doll became possessed by a demon.  Of course, even before it becomes a tool of supernatural evil, the damn thing looks possessed by something.  It kind of resembles an unholy offspring of Raggedy Ann and the killer Chucky doll.  Anyone would take one look at little Annabelle and turn away.  The movie gets some unintentional laughs early on when its heroine, a soon-to-be young mother named Mia (Annabelle Wallis), receives the creepy thing as a gift from her husband, fawns over how beautiful it is, and proudly displays it on a shelf in her future baby's nursery.  Just look at the photo accompanying this paragraph.  Would you put something like that in your kid's room?  Even when the young couple throws the doll away in the trash, and it mysteriously shows up again in their new home, they don't seem nearly as concerned as they should be. 

Fortunately, things improve after a fairly shaky and dull first half.  Mia and her husband John (Ward Horton) are awakened in the middle of the night, only to find that two members of a Satanic cult have broken into their house.  This is a period movie, set in the late 60s, so the movie kind of ties the break in and attack by the cult members to the Charles Manson murders.  The home invaders are shot down when the police arrive, but nobody happens to notice that the female attacker is clutching the Annabelle doll in her arms as she dies, and that her blood drips onto it.  This somehow allows the young woman's soul to enter the doll, and that's when the paranormal activity begins for poor Mia.  Whenever she's home by herself, strange things happen, like the TV going on the fritz, or her sewing machine turning on by itself.  The couple eventually moves to an apartment in another city, but the strange events only intensify.  Once Mia has her baby, the strange happenings get even stronger and more violent.

Naturally, the young couple soon call upon a Priest (Tony Amendola, looking an awful lot like F. Murray Abraham) to help with their demon problems, but they soon find themselves having to face the evil on their own if they want to save the souls of their family.  What makes Annabelle work, despite the familiarity of the concept, is how it embraces the filmmaking style of the era its set in.  Rather than relying on CG or shaky camera work, this movie uses a much more subtle and psychological approach.  We know that there is something obviously wrong with the doll, but we never actually see it moving around, or performing its evil.  This is a brilliant stylistic choice, and actually makes the thing creepier than it would be if it was blinking its eyes or turning its head around by itself.  I also enjoyed the way that the movie plays with our emotions, making us wonder if Mia really is troubled emotionally or mentally, and if the things happening are really going on.  Of course, we know the answer walking in, but the movie still does a good job of playing with the audience.

But the main reason I am recommending the film is that it actually pulls off some genuinely tense and actually creepy sequences.  The fact that it does so for the most part without having things flying at the camera (though there are some jump scares here) is admirable.  I don't want to ruin too many of the film's stronger moments, but I do want to talk about one scene it pulls off well.  It's when Mia is in the basement of the apartment building, and whatever evil presence is haunting her starts messing with her down there.  She manages to escape to the elevator, and selects her floor, but when she does so, the doors just open again to the evil basement.  She tries over and over again, but every time she presses the button for her floor, the doors open again to the basement.  She is forced to confront her fears, and make her way up to her floor on her own, with the evil presence ever behind her.  The set up itself is great, and fortunately the pay off of her trying to reach her floor brings some genuine tension as well.

Annabelle is not as well-written or constructed as The Conjuring was, but it actually made me feel uneasy at times and gets off some good scares.  That's more than most recent thrillers like No Good Deed, As Above/So Below, and Deliver Us From Evil managed to pull off.  Considering that this was obviously rushed out to theaters in order to cash in on the success of last year's film, it turned out about as well as we could hope.  Just as long as this doesn't become an annual thing like the Saw or Paranormal Activity movies.  Oh wait, I just noticed that The Conjuring 2 is set to come out this time next year.  Never mind.

See the movie times in your area or buy the DVD at Amazon.com!

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