ANNABELLE COMES HOME REVIEW
Starring: McKenna Grace, Madison Iseman, and Katie Sarife
Directed By: Gary Dauberman (Feature Debut)
Rated: R
Runtime: 1 hour 46 minutes
Annabelle Comes Home is the third chapter in the Annabelle trilogy.It’s a spinoff of The Conjuring movies.Annabelle was a possessed demon doll kept in the Warrens basement.The Warrens are a husband and wife team of paranormal investigators.They’re a real life couple, Leslie recently passed away this year.The couple worked on The Amityville House and gained notoriety that way.
The Conjuring Universe has been explained on this show before.It’s very similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.The series has a tentpole movie where everything comes back together, but they can also separate and do their own thing in between tentpoles.The Conjuring is akin to The Avengers in that it works as the movie where our characters come together.Next year, we’ll see The Conjuring 3 so everything from the spin offs needs to start reverting back to center.Since this show’s inception nearly two years ago, I’ve reviewed The Nun and The Curse of La Llorna on-air.The Conjuring Universe consists of two Conjuring movies and five spinoffs for a total of seven movies.The Conjuring series is really good.The spin offs, not so much.
Annabelle movies are fun, but slow.They take way too long to tell a story and this movie is no different.It takes 45 minutes to an hour to flesh out a story that a normal horror movie can handle in about fifteen minutes.Now, you can spin it and say these are character driven, but you’d be lying.They’re just slow movies.It’s not necessarily a bad thing.
In Annabelle Comes Home we use the first two acts to establish what is going on in The Warrens home.We meet their daughter who may have a little “I See Dead People” thing going on.We meet her babysitter and the babysitter’s best friend.The two decide to watch the daughter while mom and dad go out of town.That’s when it starts.
The friend goes snooping through the spooky house, finding things that weren’t meant to be found.Setting off things that were meant to be left alone.It’s a chain reaction that creates a third act in which in every item of The Warrens house seemingly comes to life to scare the three girls.
Some of it works, and some of it doesn’t.The team that made this movie are clearly hoping something sticks to make more spin off movies.There’s a haunted bride outfit that felt like an audition for a side movie.A samurai outfit that comes to life was the most intriguing spinoff idea to me.There was one other thing that was real cool and I’d like to see a spin off of but it ventures into spoiler territory and I don’t want to do that.The obvious choice for a spinoff will be the Ferryman. He’s a haunted fisherman who places ferry tokens on his victims eyes.Everything feels like it’s being thrown against the wall to see if you’d like a movie based on it.
On a scale of "See It/Stream It/Skip" -- Skip It -- There's really nothing here to recommend outside of fans of the series.
If you liked Annabelle, The Conjuring, or The Nun you might like Annabelle Comes Home
2 out of 5 stars for Annabelle Comes Home – Too unevenly paced.Too little going on at times, too much going on at others.Some simple effective scares, but not enough to recommend.