Review of Annabelle Comes Home (2019) by Tryasummersault — 26 Jun 2019

7.8/10 The third film in the Annabelle series marks Gary Dauberman's directorial debut and it's a good start for the seasoned and acclaimed horror writer. This story does echo familiar with certain thematics/aspects that we've seen in this film universe, with youth being the focal point surrounded by the paranormal phenomenon. The plot does take a little bit of time to develop and maybe spends too much time trying to develop some of the characters before anything really exciting does happen. Once things do start going bump, it does get very fast paced and thoroughly foreboding at times all while staying grounded with the plot.

The overall setting of the Warren house fits the particular story very well and adds nice substance with the artifacts room. The late 60s ambience is perfectly done and sets a terrific tone, and the lighting/ camera work is phenomenal as usual for the series. There are many different callbacks to other films in the universe with familiar entities as well as a few new very creepy ones making frightful sporadic appearances. It almost acts as a conjuring universe greatest hits if you will which isn't a bad thing and was actually quite fun. The finale finishes off the film in excellent fashion with with a fantastic culmination of events, and once again I was left wanting more for the series, be it another Annabelle or the upcoming conjuring 3.

Some of the scares also get a little bit cliché at times but they do enough to keep them fresh a majority of the time. Overall this gets the conjuring universe back on track after the last 2 middling to decent films released (The Nun/La LLorona). If you enjoy the series/universe, this is a must see.