Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

I’m a sucker for these Conjuring/Annabelle/The Nun/Insidious films. None of them will ever make my decades of horror top lists in the 2000s/2010s but I don’t take them too seriously—folks who are very polarized by the Warrens and their claims have their dithers with these films, and I get that but I’m just not bothered by these paranormal/spiritual/demonic stories to the point that I can’t enjoy them as creepy entertainments—and seem to always have a good spook or two from them. 

There is some nifty setpieces in “Annabelle Comes Home” (2019) involving a “possessive wedding dress” worn by a specter and mirrors reflecting her (just the dress on a faceless mannequin in the “evil spirit items room”) as well as the Warrens on their way to California, having to stop because their car dies, near a cemetery in the dark of night, having been forced to detour due to a car crash (the spirits of the cemetery are slightly silhouetted at the gate with the female victim of the car that was burning in the back seat talking to Lorraine Warren). 

I admit that the Hellhound that frightens a serenading Bob (Michael Cimino), hoping to score a date with Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman), who is babysitting the Warrens’ daughter, Judy (Mckenna Grace), for the evening (spending the night), is this CGI werewolf like creature right out of “Goosebumps”…it took me out of the film. It was a bit too cheesy.

 Mary Ellen and her buddy, Daniela (Katie Sarife), are at Judy’s and Daniela, reeling from a car crash that killed her father (and Daniela blames herself for), hopes that the Annabelle doll in the “protective glass case” will allow her to communicate with his spirit. Daniela leaves the case unlocked and eventually The Ferryman (the bodies of the dead must have coins over their eyes in order for their souls to cross over without trouble), Hellhound, Ram demon (that reminded me of the evil from “Insidious”), and “Evil Bride” roam about the Warrens’ house to terrorize the three gals. Daniela is locked into the evil items room for the middle of the film (such items as the typewriter speaking for the evil in the room, the Ferryman coins that Mary Ellen encounters mainly in the kitchen with the sounds of them hitting the floor a sound effect used effectively, and an old TV tube that Daniela looks into and captures her speaking and moving thirty seconds or so ahead), while Judy and Mary Ellen must try and put Annabelle (eventually out of the case) back in its protective case to restrain the evil using the doll as a conduit and release. 

There is a shadow on the wall of Annabelle that morphs into the Ram demon in Judy’s room I thought was rather well done and the film certainly gets a lot of mileage out of the doll’s eerie presence…my wife could barely watch the screen when Annabelle appeared. This also features Judy suffering from paranoid kids and Daniela’s brother’s bullying at school, none of the students planning to attend her birthday party while her parents are on a brief trip. 

While the Warrens are bringing the doll home at the beginning of the film, and they give their daughter a birthday party at the end (with Lorraine eventually comforting Daniela with words from her father), they aren’t a major part of “Annabelle Comes Home”. This is really about this one evening and how the three girls must endure the night within the house (and some time out, in terms of Bob hiding in a chicken coop and Judy running to Mary Ellen’s car to get her asthma inhaler), battle the ghouls that haunt it, and get Annabelle back in the case where she belongs. 

The score can be quiet such as when Daniela is in the evil items room or quite active as when Mary Ellen is in the kitchen as the coins look like eyes and drop to the floor. While Annabelle never really moves, it is nonetheless once again an important “character” in the film as its purpose allows evil to kick up a nuisance to all three girls (and Bob). 

I think the film is at its very best accentuating spiritual presences in the dark, and while the score and jump scares are telegraphed as only Hollywood horror does I felt it was competently produced and was better than it really should have been. In terms of sequels, this does feel disposable and more or less a period 70s cashgrab for The Conjuring series. But it didn’t cost a lot, stayed wisely close to a single location, and takes advantage of the collected evil items in the Warrens’ home to tell its story…and it made a decent pile. If it continues to work, The Conjuring Universe will continue to produce these kinds of paranormal/evil spirit offerings. 

I do think the split audience reception dealt with the feeling of hoaxes receiving to-this-day publicity, an ongoing Conjuring series that continues to drop films like an assembly line seemingly every year, and this singular horror sequel that doesn’t really need to exist nor adds anything significant to the Warrens’ history except for their daughter’s psychic gift being emphasized. And all is well, nice and pat, before the Warrens return, complete with the happy birthday party and plenty of smiles. 2.5/5

*There is a hilarious scene that was almost as silly as the Hellhound. This actually features a projection from recorded film playing on the wall of the Warrens involved in an exorcism that helps to free a possessed Daniela who was grabbed by the bride ghoul with "evil spirit vomit" that is responsible for her spiritual "invasion". It is preposterous and told dead seriously.