375. Annabelle Comes Home; movie review

ANNABELLE COMES HOME
Cert 15
106 mins
BBFC advice: Contains strong supernatural threat, violence, injury detail

Enough now with the Annabelle stories.
Clearly, the makers of The Conjuring have seen a pot of endless potential in spin-offs from the real-life paranormal investigations of Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga).
This film begins with them but don't be fooled by the opening because they are only in it for about ten minutes.
Instead, the focus is their 10-year-old daughter Judy (McKenna Grace), her babysitter (Madison Iseman) and the latter's best friend (Katie Sarife).
But while the cast may be different, the premise is very similar to the other Warren stories.
This one centres once again on the Annabelle doll which is locked away in a glass case in the room in which the Warrens have contained possessed artefacts.
The room is off-limits to everyone but the babysitter's friend is keen to find her way in and try to make otherworldly contact with her father who was killed in a road crash a year previously.
When she does unlocks the room's door, she unleashes the spirits and, unsurprisingly, all hell lets loose.
And then we are back into that sense of 'same old, same old' with scares and screams increasing as the picture rolls on.
Unfortunately, it follows the trend of many modern films in having very attractive teens inadvertently doing very stupid things which endanger their own lives.
Gary Dauberman's movie does prompt its audience to leap from its seat - indeed, I jumped three times but, between those spikes, it has a story which quickly flatlines because it is so predictable.
Essentially, young girls scream a lot, things fly around the house, doors slam and loud bangs occur.
As said, we did jump but who wouldn't when sudden noise comes out of a screen. That doesn't always mean good horror is taking place.
In fact, the reverse is true and, for the most part, this latest Annabelle film was a yawn fest. However, don't rule out more - the cinema-going public is still supporting them.

Reasons to watch: Pretty creepy
Reasons to avoid: Stretching a story

Laughs: None
Jumps: Three
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 3.5/10

Did you know? In the Warrens' real occult museum, the Annabelle doll is not wide-eyed and made of porcelain. It's actually an innocent-looking Raggedy Ann doll. 

The final word. Gary Dauberman: "I always go back to the source where all this stemmed from, this entire universe and that is the Warrens’ files and the books they’ve written over the years which I encourage everyone to pick up and read because there’s a lot of great stuff in there." Slash Film

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