Movie Review: Annabelle (2014)

Let's make another Chucky movie. Although, instead of using the doll from Child's Play, we will use the doll that was only a small portion of the movie The Conjuring. That is essentially what Annabelle is, it's a horror movie that is really cliche. It basically follows this couple, the husband buys his wife this doll because it's supposed to be a gift for her (because she is having a baby). The doll is this really creepy one named Annabelle. Although, they actually don't refer to the doll as having a name throughout the entire film, so that is just our prior knowledge. Anyway, things start happening and the movie starts becoming really unrealistic really quickly. There literally is a scene where the wife is cornered by the girl who was murdered, that possessed the doll. Then the wife needs assistance because she gets injured. That's OK for a horror movie, but everyone else (including her husband) acts like the whole thing is no big deal. There like: It's OK, it's just the pregnancy doing it's thing. This movie suffers from a lot of things, but I'm going to mention only a few things. The first thing that this movie really has problems with is engaging the audience into the movie. This movie runs at a really slow pace and the story is very predictable from the first one or two scenes. You can literally tell what's going to happen next, and then that very thing occurs in the film. The other thing that this movie kind of missed is actually providing solid scares. There are one or two, maybe three scenes that are a bit scary, but nothing even comes close to that of The Conjuring. I liked The Conjuring because it provided solid scares from the beginning to the end. With Conjuring you never felt safe watching it. You never knew what was going to pop up. However, Annabelle copies this, and only some of the scenes are scary. It tries too hard to be suspensful. The acting from the husband and wife is acceptable, the person who plays the bookstore owner is really good in this movie. In fact, she is talented. A good thing is making the doll creepy. Yes, that's essential to the film. In order to make a successful horror flick, you have to make the creature scary. Annabelle is pretty dark. Overall, it's not a horrible flick, but it does have a scene at the end where the wife states that she hopes whoever gets the doll next won't experience the hauntings that they did. Setting it up for The Conjuring later on, I like that part of this movie. Two stars.