Review of Annabelle (2014) by Junelkean — 07 Jul 2017

Among the many terrifying objects genuinely linked to freaky paranormal and demonic manifestations from the museum of Ed and Lorraine Warren, the attention grabber we got hooked in The Conjuring was Annabelle, and for this time, she is given the chance to show her origin story, or maybe not? So, how did the eerie doll get to be devilish in the first place? This movie takes us before the events of the first film to know the answers.

In The Conjuring, the story is to discover the macabre history of the Perron's home combined with memorable characters, a disturbing atmosphere and well-set-up scares, this film makes exactly the same opposite of that thing with a few positives. Although their characters suffer from dimensions, the lead actors, Annabelle Wallis and Ward Horton are enough to show their acting skills in this movie.

However, unlike The Conjuring, there is no suspense building to craft effective thrills and scares, instead it is filled with predictable and frequently effectual jumpscares which gets too repetitive and annoying at the end. It also wastes a great premise to use a creepy situation for a bad setting.

VERDICT: Annabelle may have few effective thrills, but this spin-off cannot be saved by its actors and its poker-faced dolls.