REVIEW | Annabelle (2014)

The Story: Hey honey, do you think we should put this extremely creepy doll in our soon to be born baby’s nursery? Annabelle is the story of how the doll came into the possession of the two nurses from the beginning of The Conjuring.

The Facts: Annabelle is written by Gary Dauberman and Directed by John R. Leonetti, and stars Annabelle Wallis and Ward Horton as Mia and John Gordon, Tony Amendola as Father Perez and Alfre Woodard as Evelyn.

My Overall Take on the Movie: I went into this movie not really expecting much, and to be honest my expectations were right. This movie just seems like a forced story that was solely made for the purposes of making a studio money. The part of this movie besides the actual Annabelle doll felt very forced and I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if this movie started out as a script about a possessed doll and some studio exec figured they could turn it into a Conjuring spin-off. I loved The Conjuring and thought it was a great movie so it was honestly kind of upsetting to see such a bad movie coming the some of the same people that made a movie I liked so much.

Things I liked: The only thing I actually liked about the movie was the demon. I’ve always liked that in the in James Wan movies he uses practical effects for the monsters and not just CGI, so I thought that was a very good aspect of the film. Now I’m not saying this movie was completely terrible, but it wasn’t close to being great either.

Things I Didn’t Like: The thing I didn’t like the most of this movie was the plot, why on earth would you put such a creepy doll in your house? Why would you keep it after a crazy lady killed herself while holding it? Why would you keep it after throwing it away and it just popping back up in a box at your new house? The scenes that were meant to be scary were never surprising because the camera would focus on where the scare was about to come from as well as playing music that would tip you off to what was about to happen before every single scare in the movie.  Also the acting was bad from everyone except for Alfre Woodard.

Rating: 3 out of 10

         Final Verdict: Save it for Netflix!!!

My Favorite Scene: The ending credits.