Annabelle
A
Annabelle is a prequel to "The Conjuring". It takes place before the Annabelle comes into the hands of famous paranormal researchers - Ed and Lorraine Warren.
As those of us in the paranormal field know... Annabelle is based on a true story of a Raggedy Ann doll that had a demonic possession. The doll was purchased at a thrift store by a nursing student's mother as a gift for her daughter's apartment... and that is where she started wreaking havoc on the nursing student and her roommates. Moving around, bleeding.. the demon even posed as a little girl in order to get the nursing student to invite "her" to stay with them... which is how the demon was able to do it's worst.
The story of Annabelle from the movie is a fictionalized account of where Annabelle came from before she got into the hands of the nursing student and her roommates.
Warning: This review contains spoilers
There is a young couple named John and Mia, who are expecting their first child. Mia collects creepy looking dolls, (well creepy to me), but one specific one has eluded her. As a gift for his expectant wife... John finds and buys the exact doll she's been looking for that completes her collection.
Their neighbors have a daughter (Annabelle Higgins) who disappeared to join a Charlie Manson type cult who worship demons. She and her boyfriend return to the house and killed her parents in a ritualistic fashion. hearing the commotion, John and Mia run to find their neighbors dead and Mia returns to call the police... and Annabelle has gotten into her house and attacks her. John and the police are able to kill Annabelle's boyfriend. Annabelle dies after slitting her own throat and using the blood to draw the symbol of the ram... which is used to summon evil. As she dies, her blood drips onto the doll, which she is seen holding.
From there we pretty much know the story. Demon attaches to the doll... the doll is thrown away but keeps coming back, it moves from room to room, is found rocking on a rocking chair... and then bad things start to happen. The demon attached to the doll causes a fire... taunts Mia by making the baby appear to disappear, even telling her the only way to stop everything is to sacrifice her soul.
Now onto the review
I actually found this movie to be pretty good. It's a psychological thriller more than a "horror" movie. There is no gore, no gratuitous sex, no excessive swearing... nothing really used for "shock" value. It moves forward solely based on the writing, acting, and plot of the movie. I personally like that. I am not interested in a bunch of hormonal teenagers' sex lives... I'm not a big fan of excessive use of gore... I find gore nauseating rather than scary... I enjoy the nervous feeling of anticipating what is going to jump out when they open the closet - only to breath a sigh of relief that nothing jumped out - only for something to happen when I was calm and not expecting it.
so it was nice to see a horror movie that relied on storytelling rather than shock value.
The story was pretty solid - While we don't know how Annabelle came to be - we only know the story after the nursing student's mother bought the doll from the thrift store - the story cultivated here is pretty plausible in realm of what could happen in the paranormal with demonic infestation... and they keep it relevant as in, they don't take too many liberties that violate the canon of the actual story.
I really enjoy this movie. I just wish Ed and Lorraine Warren, played by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga, were a part of the movie. I am hoping they make a sequel to the prequel which will actually take a deeper look at the actual story of the haunting of Annabelle that we know to be true, from the perspective of the nursing students and the Warrens who came in to help them.
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