Annabelle, a horror film directed by John R. Leonetti, is the first of three Annabelle movies (Annabelle: Creation and Annabelle Comes Home) spawned as an offshoot of The Conjuring Universe of films. The rest of the franchise includes four The Conjuring movies which have a main focus on the two “demonologists” who found the Annabelle doll in real life, Ed and Lorraine Warren. The second offshoot are the two Nun movies about an evil demon nun named Valak. All of the movies have been incredibly successful in terms of money spent versus money earned (gross of $2.6 billion against costs of $263 million). Annabelle is especially impressive in that it had a mere $6.5 million budget and brought in $257 million worldwide.
Buy Annabelle Blu-rayThe year is 1967, and the Tate-Labianca murders and the cult of Charles Manson is all that plays on the news. John Form (Ward Horton) is a medical student, and his wife, Mia (Annabelle Wallis – no relation to the doll), is pregnant and due any day now. John brings home a prized doll for his wife’s collection that is kept in the nursery. One night, the Form’s are woken to find their neighbors being attacked by their cult-following daughter and her boyfriend. The Form’s are also attacked and Mia is stabbed, endangering her fetus. The police arrive and the neighbor’s daughter, Annabelle, dies while holding the new doll. Her blood drips onto the face of the doll where it instantly soaks into the doll’s “skin.” This is shorthand for: You have a possessed doll now, and good luck with that.
Mia gives birth to a healthy girl, and the couple move into a new apartment several cities away. John had thrown the doll in the trash a long time ago, but it somehow shows up again while they are unpacking. Mia decides to keep the doll, as it completes a special collection even though it in no way resembles any of the other dolls on the shelves. Mia begins to have demonic experiences, and, let me just make this quite clear, the scene in the basement is one of the great scares in The Conjuring Universe. The couple aren’t totally alone in what will become a fight for life or death: there’s the parish priest, Father Perez (Tony Amendola), and a local bookshop owner, Evelyn (Alfre Woodard). Both actors are excellent additions to the film and plot.
Annabelle feels like an extended episode of an old Twilight Zone. This is due to the minimal budget, small number of sets, and very few actors. Instead, the money saved is spent on the demons and the doll. That money is well spent, as the demons really are quite surreal and evil looking. Annabelle also relies on a lot of old tricks: the conveniently staticky television set; somebody quickly walking by in the far background; and disfigured faces in the darkness. The only non-scary part is Annabelle the doll, because she is a doll that you can pick up and chuck out the window. It is not explained why only one character ever thinks to take such action.
