Annabelle (2014)

This film is hilariously bad. I brought it back for me and my girlfriend, and we watched it. This film really tried to pull off the 'omg-look-behind-you' and 'im-really-stupid-so-im-not-going-to-pick-up-that-gun'-type mentatily. I understand this is part of the Horror genre that i so love, but.. this is ridiculous to the point to making fun of you. Because of this, you will probably want to shut it off about 2/3 through, by that stage the shitness couldn't bring me to care about the already weak characters any more anyway, unfortunately. Started so well. What a shame.

Fmovies: I loved The Conjuring when it came out was up there with my favourite movies from last year. Annabelle when first seen the trailers wasn't sure if was going to a good movie on its own. But I was wrong.

Don't know how many times I jumped in my seat watching this movie and some of the reactions it was getting from other people in the crowd. It really keeps up the scares and frights and tries to keep them at a good pace throughout the movie.

Now this is by no means better than The Conjuring but it is pretty close. The doll is terrifying and I imagine a lot of people won't be looking at their dolls the same again after watching this.

We have met the creepy vintage doll Annabelle before in last year's excellent and very memorable horror film "The Conjuring." She was just the front act there, showing up only at the pre-opening credits sequence. This year, we get to know Annabelle more and how she came to be demonically possessed.

The setting of this film is in the 1960s in a California suburb. Young couple John and Mia are expecting their first child. One day, John surprises Mia, who was a vintage doll collector, with a huge antique doll with painted ivory face wearing white satin dress adorned by a red bow. It just so happened that same night, crazy satanic cultists attack their home and there was resulting bloodshed. However, since that night, there was no more peace in John and Mia's household, especially after she gives birth to their daughter, Leah.

I liked the throwback look of this film, with its faded color palette and meticulous production design. The architecture, interior design, fashion, hairstyles, television shows, pop music all captured the era so well. Even the look of cutie baby Leah was vintage, like the Gerber baby. These things also contributed to the scariness factor because of the limitation of technology that the characters have on hand.

A big part of the success of "Annabelle" as a horror film is the effective lead performance of coincidentally-named Annabelle Wallis as Mia. The character's name Mia, I am guessing, is a tribute to Mia Farrow, who was the star of a horror classic of the 1960s, "Rosemary's Baby." The stroller Mia uses for Leah sure looked like Rosemary's stroller which is seen in posters of that old film. Ms. Wallis has an elegant beauty and her acting was sympathetic without becoming cheesy.

Ward Horton plays Mia's husband John, who is a medical student, which makes a convenient excuse for him to be a skeptic and always on call during the night, leaving Mia in the house watching television or working on her sewing machine. Veteran actress Alfre Woodard is the only familiar face in the cast, and she plays their helpful neighbor Evelyn. Her character though had a story arc which probably the only negative thing I could say about this film.

John R. Leonetti, the cinematographer of "Insidious 1 & 2" and "The Conjuring" makes an auspicious directorial debut with "Annabelle." He learned very well from his his previous director James Wan, who sits as producer of this film. You can see he has the eye for the perfect views for the most effective suspense and surprise.

I liked the cinematography that employs camera angles that give you the point of view of the tormented victim so that you too do not know what will happen next. The suspense could be so intense so many times, with the excellent editing and splicing of scenes together accompanied by a swelling crescendo of music. The timing for the big jump scare was effectively surprising most of the time, even you were sort of predicting it to happen already.

This is a film which may divide audiences as to whether it could match the successes of "Insidious" or "The Conjuring." As it is, I liked "Annabelle" more than I thought I would. I was expecting the worst, since I hated how the Annabelle doll looked and I can't imagine anyone wanting one like it in their house. However, the film managed to transcend that limitation and actually create genuine scares that worked.

Annabelle fmovies. Okay folks. This not an Oscar film for sure. It is also not ground breaking by any means. Hell the only thing even remotely true about the film is the first maybe three minutes. This is every horror movie you have ever seen rolled into one. One minute you feel like your watching Rosemary's Baby. Then Rosemary is in the Amityville house. The next moment here comes Chucky with even a little Helter Skelter thrown into the mix. But everything I could say that is wrong with this film is exactly why it works. it embraces its cheese factor. Even revels in it at times. The film has some great scares and in a few cases some real interesting ones. It is just simply a lot of fun to watch with a lot of people. So much so, when Annabelle reveals herself fully you find yourself really into it. I thought the ending was weak but by the time you get to the end it would be very hard to raise the level suspense any higher. There is a scene with a sewing machine and Jiffy Pop which I think should go down in horror movie history for the right way to build suspense. It was funny listening to the audiences nervous giggles as something was about to happen. Go to this as entertainment and nothing more. Nothing deep here. Very little real here. It is based on a true story. However, based is a very loose word here. Three minutes is based upon a true story. Just good October fun.

I have watched many many scary movies, some good some bad, none truly scary. Anyone who reviewed this film as scary or awesome obviously has not seen the film. This is a complete snore-fest, from start to finish. I saw perhaps 3 "jump out of seat" scenes where it was totally predictable on it and was yawning each time. The conjuring was a terrific film, and this one is just trying to score big bucks off that name with 1/4 the budget. I was left feeling angry and cheated. There was no depth, no character relation, no story-line, nothing to get you even remotely into the film, except "saw the previews, this is gonna be so good !" feeling you saw when you watched the previews and couldn't wait for this to come out. A complete letdown in all aspects except the fact it actually ended and I could go do something else.

As a prequel and spin-off of The Conjuring – 2013's highly effective horror film – Annabelle does what it promises, even if it does so one jump and one jolt at a time. But that's all you get, jumpy scenes done to perfection, with little or no atmosphere and a story that disintegrates before it reaches a satisfying conclusion.

One of the most important aspects of The Conjuring and older sibling Insidious (both films directed by James Wan), is the cinematography and how it wreaks havoc with the viewer's peripheral vision. By this I am referring to events occurring off-center, or in some corner of the screen that is oblivious to on-screen characters but very obvious to the viewer. Consider a scene where a mother watches over her new born baby. The scene is shot in the living room where the right half of the frame is composed of the mother and her baby and the left half is a hallway that leads to other rooms in the house. Without shifting focus from the mother and child, we see something or someone lurking in the hallway behind; something that shouldn't be there in the first place. While this tactic is nothing new to horror-thrillers, it works for the whole purpose of inducing dread, thick and slow, before the actual jolt hits a few seconds later. The scariest scenes in Annabelle are made up of these moments, and at times we are left guessing what lurks in the corners. And is probably why cinematographer John R Leonetti of those preceding films is tasked with directorial duties in this film, while Wan himself is bumped up to producer. Leonetti plays it safe by treading down Wan's beaten path but without any surprises of his own.

Playing the aforementioned mother is Annabelle Wallis (freaky coincidence?) as Mia Gordon. Mia has a doll collection, one of which is the titular vintage doll gifted by her medical student husband John (Ward Horton). After surviving a horrific attack from a satanic cult, the Gordons have new guests that won't leave. At first Mia starts seeing things and becomes increasingly paralysed by fear while John begins to doubt her sanity. It's a stock approach to crying wolf in horror movies. It takes a while to dawn on them that something has latched on to Annabelle, making the doll a conduit with increasing intent on harming them and their new born baby. Consultations with a librarian and a priest reveal far greater implications, thus leaving these young parents to ward off hell by going right through it.

On one hand, the look and feel in this film is a copy-paste version of Insidious, but concentrated with sporadic moments of numbing fright. We've seen it before in classic horror films – young parents who must literally go through hell to save their child's soul. It's the same concept here but effective enough for a low budget horror film. Like a stern disciple, Leonetti is on par with Wan's technical approach. Cinematography, hair raising sound design (including deliberate moments without sound), and some decent tension will garner a few screams from the audience, but that's about it. On the downside, there isn't much of a story for a script based on real events and don't even expect anything along the lines of an animated 'Çhucky' doll. It's not about what the doll can do but about what's in the doll -If only they had built on that frame of thought. After some well-timed jump scares in the first half, all we are left with is a murky conclusion owing to underwritten supporting cast members whose inclusion leaves th