Annabelle Comes Home, the seventh installment in the Conjuring franchise is one movie that isn’t scary for a large part of its runtime. I have to say that this franchise is losing its charm as the horror movie traits are getting repeated frequently and we don’t feel any uniqueness to these films. Like almost all the other films in the franchise, Annabelle Comes Home is kind of engaging, but because of the familiarity, it never becomes an appealing movie.
So Annabelle Comes Home is set in the backdrop of the home of the Warren’s. We are shown an initial bit of how the Warrens brought the doll to their collection. After a year of that event comes a day where their daughter Judy was home with a girl named Marry Allen who took up the task of babysitting Judy. Things didn’t go that smoothly for the two when Marry Allen’s friend Daniela decided to drop by. The chaos that happens at this museum of ghosts on that particular day is what Annabelle Comes Home showing its viewers.
So the basic concept of Annabelle Comes Home is almost like a Home Alone horror version. And you have all the horror movie clichés like people entering rooms that are restricted and every other thing that anyone with basic common sense won’t do if they are scared. If it was any random house, I would have been less annoyed by the behavior of the character Daniela. But she was asking for it by intentionally doing the unadvised thing and in the filmmaker’s defense, she has a very emotional reason for it which eventually made the whole thing somewhat understandable. After an initial half of no real scares, the film enters a second half that showcases various kinds of scaring techniques. While some of it was interesting most of it looked like a rehashed version of the existing tricks.
Mckenna Grace as Judy Warren was good as she played the role of the introvert Judy with a sense of maturity. Madison Iseman was fine in being Marry Allen. In terms of scope to perform, I felt Katie Sarife got a relatively better role in this movie as Daniela Rios and she was pretty effective as that typical horror movie character that disrupts the rhythm. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprise their respective roles as the Warrens.
The movie is directed by debutant director Gary Dauberman who has associated with the franchise as a writer previously. Like I already said, Dauberman’s script is more interested in creating horror from the home alone kind of situation rather than having a story with some depth. Daniela’s character could have provided a much better reasoning and emotional depth to the story. But the less than two-hour long movie is more interested in the jump scares. In certain areas in the latter half of the film, the extent of pushing certain horror ideas was too much that people along with whom I watched the film started laughing. The cinematography follows the set pattern of the franchise while the edits and the screenplay lack that sense of tension.
Like almost all the horror movies, Annabelle Comes Home also has a lot of jump scare moments which will surely create that momentary fear in you. But the chances of you addressing this movie as an extremely scary film with vivid imagery about the story are pretty less and that has been the problem with the James Wan lead franchise off late.
The chances of you addressing this movie as an extremely scary film with vivid imagery about the story are pretty less and that has been the problem with the James Wan lead franchise off late.
Green: Recommended Content
Orange: The In-Between Ones
Red: Not Recommended
