Annabelle is a bad movie. What’s worse, is the spin-off from The Conjuring is a terribly boring movie. It all started back in the original film where the creepy doll was introduced and since The Conjuring did amazingly well at the box office, that means executives were going to milk this franchise dry. The first film to come from the world of The Conjuring, it followed John and his wife, Mia, who gets an incredibly creepy doll in a white dress. Devil worshippers invade their house and attack the innocent couple, but Mia and John are able to escape with their lives. Unfortunately, cultists put a curse on the doll, leaving the door wide open for evil to come in. Now, Annabelle is from the man who did Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, so that was the first clue that gave away the film was going to be no good. One of the biggest issues is that Mia and John are virtually perfect and void of any personalities. The other is that Annabelle borrows moments from better supernatural-type stories.
However, despite Annabelle turning out to be a huge disappointment, there are a couple of decent scenes in the film, including Mia being attacked by cult members. It’s the most interesting aspect as it introduces chaos and turbulence into the seemingly perfect world of Mia and John, which gets the whole Annabelle craze started. Now, say what you will about Annabelle (and I’ve said plenty) but this scene is so effective due to the interesting layers present during this moment. John and Mia are a rich couple living a normal life. There’s nothing wrong with that as long as the character’s world is disrupted in some manner. It takes a while to get to that moment, but the cultist’s aspect is what the film should’ve truly focused on. Here are these devil worshippers assaulting a perfect couple for their sick pleasures. Who are these people? How did they get to the point in their lives where they opted to become devil worshippers? Was killing Mia and John their only objective? The exploration of satanic cults is nothing new in the realm of horror, but this single moment packs so much juice into the film that following the devil worshippers could’ve given better insight into the world of Annabelle, and more importantly, it could’ve been a fun and gritty contrast to the upper-scale family that Ed and Lorraine tackled during The Conjuring. But even then, the scene isn’t just effective because of what could’ve been, but the build to the moment is nice.
The key thing is that this moment strikes a chord with audience members because it’s such a big invasion of privacy; Image if you were living your life normally and suddenly your peace was disrupted by intruders barraging into your home? It’s one of the rare moments that helps you connect with the married couple. Wisely, John R. Leonetti keeps the scene simple. He doesn’t have the devil worshippers speak a bunch of non-sense before they attack, nor do they give away their motivation like a couple of mustache twirling villains. The action in itself is a bit shoddy, I get that Leonetti is going for a chaotic feel, but the numerous camera cuts mostly distract and robs the audience from seeing the action. The scenes need to slow down the cutting so the audience can invest into the action itself as it becomes a bit disorientating that everything is moving so fast, yet you can get barely get a grip on everything going on. Still, it’s not such a horrible moment that takes away from the horror in the scene itself. The final moments of Mia being taken away and seeing Annabelle square in the arms of the dead female devil worshipper bring chills down your spine, leaving more intriguing questions surrounding the situation. It’s such a shame that Annabelle dives into such cartoon madness (and not in a good way) as there’s clearly a decent story buried in this promising feature. The actors do a solid job throughout the scene. There reactions feel natural and the whole moment isn’t too wild and over-the-top. While the police officer randomly popping out of nowhere is kind of a lame ex-machina, it’s far from the worse thing to happen in the feature. Despite my reservations about Annabelle, there are effective moments within the film that showcases it’s potential. This scene won’t go down as one of the best in horror movie history, but it effectively gives Annabelle a much-needed jolt.
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