Annabelle

A prequel to 2013’s The Conjuring, Annabelle follows newly-married couple Mia (Annabelle Wallis) and John (Ward Horton) as they find themselves forced to battle a malevolent demon housed within the titular doll. It’s clear immediately that Annabelle‘s biggest hurdle to overcome is its almost aggressively bland protagonists, as both Wallis and Horton, though competent performers, are simply unable to inject their respective characters with any depth or color – which naturally prevents the viewer from working up a rooting interest in Mia and John’s continuing survival. Their blandness stands in sharp contract to the film’s visuals, as director John R. Leonetti generally does an effective job of injecting the proceedings with a stylish, foreboding atmosphere (ie it becomes increasingly clear that Leonetti, along with cinematographer James Kniest, has been influenced by Roman Polanski’s Rosemary’s Baby). Likewise, Annabelle boasts a handful of unexpectedly gripping sequences that are, for the most part, far better than one might’ve anticipated – with the best and most obvious example of this a fantastic interlude in which Mia finds herself unable to escape a dark storage room. And yet the film never quite manages to coalesce into a cohesive whole, with the often excessively deliberate pace, in the second half, compounded by a tedious emphasis on the mystery behind Annabelle’s existence. The lack of visceral thrills – ie this is a killer doll movie without a killer doll – ultimately confirms Annabelle‘s place as a slightly above average yet run-of-the-mill ghost story, although it’s just as clear that the film basically works as a setup to James Wan’s slightly superior The Conjuring.

** out of ****