Creepy Dolls, Satanist Cult murders, and a Demon in the Theatre

Well, I had a date night with my wife as the parents watched the kids and the movie selection in the theater was Annabelle, a doll that was last seen in a glass case, put there by the husband/wife spiritualists in The Conjuring. This film predates that one year, right around the time the Manson family was communing in the Spahn Ranch, Martin and Rowen's Laugh-In was the comedy of choice, sewing machines were a preferred method for making clothes for children, and the retro colors specifically used were browns and greens. The film echoes the growing number of cults forming out of the era of flower children and protestors of war in favor of sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll as a mad, devil-worshipping couple attack the parents of the female member of this duo as a pregnant suburbanite and her medical-student husband sleep in their bed in the house next to the house featuring the bloody slaying. When the husband gets up at the wife's request (she heard the neighbor screaming), going to that house to see what is wrong, the occult murdering couple are able to slip into their house when said pregnant wife leaves momentarily to access what is wrong. Told by her husband to call for paramedics, she is stabbed by the boyfriend of Annabelle, the daughter who took part in butchering her parents. Then as the husband struggles with the boyfriend, Annabelle seems on the verge of attacking the pregnant wife. Finally the police shoot Annabelle's boyfriend but she takes her own life as her blood drips into the eye of a creepy doll that completed the collection of the pregnant wife. With a Satanic symbol written in Annabelle's blood and a conjuring that caused a demonic spirit to infiltrate the doll, the couple aren't through with evil making their lives miserable.

Annabelle Wallis is Mia, the pregnant woman who is stabbed but doesn't lose her child. Her husband, eventually becoming a doctor, is loyal and patient husband, John, played by Ward Horton. These are rather fresh faces and do adequate jobs in their roles. Wallis knows when to show all the appropriate emotions when expected, including fear, trembling, disorientation, confusion, frustration, and hysteria. The role she plays demands these particular emotions as a demon (dark, with horns, distinctive eyes, but carefully shown only enough to elicit a response from the audience when he emerges in the background much to Mia's horror) and Annabelle in demonic form (kind of like a spectre she can be seen in another room while the camera is on Mia or from a distance, sometimes appearing just in frame for a moment or two). The best scenes I consider were based on how they popped the crowd in the theater I attended. The demon is upside down and leaps towards the screen. The demon can be seen near a baby carriage after briefly revealing itself to Mia in a storage room. Annabelle is in a child form then transforms into an ugly monstrous form of her adult self as she momentarily speeds towards Mia. Books fall from a bookcase narrowly missing Mia's baby as she remains trapped in the baby room thanks to the door that doesn't open. Victims levitate and are thrown by the demonic spirit. These scenes are scattered about, peppered to keep the audience at bay and then reacting as the jump scare music throttles a musical poke as an addition to the images supposed to scare them. The doll itself would be difficult to carry a film so the use of Annabelle's spirit and the demon are called on to provide extra jolt and kick. The doll is damned creepy, though. Another good performance--no surprise--from Alfre Woodard as a bookstore owner who befriends Mia and becomes a cherubic godsend when she needs someone to believe in her after the scary experiences she endures. Woodard takes a thankless role and gives it pathos, particularly when describing the loss of her daughter. Her sacrifice spares Mia and provides a reason for the doll to make its way into the eventual glass case the Warrens have special for "occult pieces". The doll gets a lot of mileage by the filmmakers and her "levitation" scene after sitting up while cloaked in shadow brought a gasp to the audience in the theatre. To me, the best scene involves Annabelle and her boyfriend on the attack as Mia and John are not prepared for the danger that has now made its way into their house. Suburbia wasn't safe anymore. The world was changing.

Of course, the baby is in constant danger, Catholicism gets some rub as a priest is involved in attempting to help rid the family of the cursed doll (that instead hurls him like a rag doll to the sidewalk of his church) and the cathedral is majestic in its size and artistry, the doll is located in different places (when John throws it in the garbage can, and the doll re-emerges in a box, this scene and others reminded me of the Twilight Zone episode featuring Telly Savalez, "The Living Doll".), and camera angles of all kinds are used to give it an extra bit of spooky. I thought this was an adequate, if not extraordinary, prequel and followup to The Conjuring. It won't set the world on fire, but for a night of fun, I guess it is alright.

Annabelle (2014) **½