A demonic doll? A newlywed couple with a baby on the way? A kindly old woman who just happens to know about the demon? Take those three components and you’ve got the cliché, basic, stupid premise of every horror movie ever including the recently released “Annabelle.”
The film’s premise is cliché and super predictable, with Mia (Annabelle Wallis) and Josh Gordon (Ward Horton), a married couple who (big surprise!) just happen to find a doll possessed by a malevolent force. Look at that!
The trailers seem to indicate that the titular character, the doll Annabelle, is animate, haunting the couple on her volition. While that premise would’ve been awesome, instead it’s just a regular doll that has a curse attached to it. Seriously, what a cop out.
Instead, the geniuses behind this piece of garbage movie decide that Annabelle should just be knocked around by a demonic force and NOT DO ANYTHING ACTUALLY SCARY. This was a horrible move on their part, as I went in expecting something along the lines of the Chucky from the “Childs Play” series.
The film was also fairly moderate in terms of gore, proving a nice break from the current mentality in the industry: more blood equals more scares. That couldn’t be more untrue. When will studios get it through their head that blood isn’t scary? It just grosses people out when they think of the movie in the middle of a meal later that day.
The film differs from most horror films in that the Gordons and their child survive the film completely unharmed. They get away with this when Evelyn, a bookstore owner who’s quite knowledgeable about the dark arts, sacrifices herself to a demon to save them. For real? I just spent 90 minutes watching this couple and their kid stupidly stumble around, and they ended up alive, completely unharmed? Definitely one of the more unsatisfying endings I’ve seen in a while—talk about a pointless movie.
With horror movies being pretty terrible to begin with, Annabelle is definitely not worth seeing. Seriously, don’t waste your money, it was awful.
