The great blessing and curse of “The Conjuring” Cinematic Universe is its EC Comics-style of anthology storytelling. Standalone stories based on creepy totems or spooky entities is a refreshing way to continue a horror movie franchise without going down the rabbit hole of demystifying the very thing that made the original film connect in the first place.
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Sadly, there’s also a familiar, regurgitated downside to the approach—floors creak, objects float, loud noises crash, and large, empty spaces on one side of the frame become occupied when the camera pans over and back—that make these films feel indistinguishable from one another. And with new characters coming and going—and usually being disposably offed in the process —it’s hard to have an emotional connection to any of them or the story fundamentals.
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The latest ‘Conjuring’ tale, “Annabelle Comes Home” tries to marry the best of both worlds, with mixed results, by bringing back Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) to ground this third, and presumably final, ‘Annabelle’ film to the characters that created an investment in this series from the beginning.
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The directorial debut of longtime series scribe Gary Dauberman, the decision to bring back the original franchise characters is a wise one, though ultimately wasted and a cheap marketing ploy. Those hoping that “Annabelle Comes Home” would essentially be a clever backdoor for “Conjuring 3,” will be thoroughly disappointed. While Wilson and Farmiga’s mere presence injects the film with much-needed gravitas, they are barely utilized after the prologue, where the Warrens first take in the creepy doll and discover that she is a conduit for other spirits. Annabelle is then blessed by a priest and put in the glass case with a very clear “Do Not Open” sign. The majority of the film takes place in 1971, concurrently with the first ‘Conjuring and while it has its charms, it’s also slight.
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The Warrens are heading to the Perron family’s house—the same family victimized in ‘Conjuring 1’— leaving their daughter Judy (Mckenna Grace) with her babysitter Mary (Madison Iseman) and Mary’s friend Daniela (Katie Sarife), who recently lost her father in a car accident where she had been driving. Feeling the guilt weighing her down and knowing the Warrens’ occupation of chasing down specters, she goes down into their basement full of totems, opens that “Do Not Open” glass case, and of course —naturally, this is a horror movie where people make terribly stupid decisions despite big bold warnings to the contrary— unleashes fresh hell into the house.
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That whiplash of solid emotional heft combined with characters making idiotic choices makes “Annabelle Comes Home” a moderately entertaining, but also frustrating, experience. Fear and/or embrace of the unknown is a strong undercurrent the narrative builds its foundation on, be it Daniela looking for some kind of spiritual sign to help her unpack her grief, or Judy being ostracized by her classmates after an article comes out about her parents’ questionable exorcism and dealing with the burden of sharing her mother’s ability to see and hear the undead. The chemistry between the three leads is immensely charming and essentially recreates the “Halloween” dynamic by way of “The Conjuring” template. Iseman’s Mary is very much the Laurie Strode character, the book smart high schooler who has a good relationship with the kid she babysits and doesn’t quite know how to talk to boys (a blooming relationship between her and fellow classmate Bob [Michael Cimino, no known relation to “The Deer Hunter” director] leads to some nice moments of levity). And Daniela is the Annie character, a bit more worldly and more apt to bend the rules than her friend.
The tone is reminiscent of a fun throwback to the kids and teens “survive the night” sleepover horror movie of yesteryear, and those are the moments when “Annabelle Comes Home” rises above this series’ firmly locked-in-place formula. Because the rest, the mechanics are in the scares themselves, are rather rote.
It’s not unlike the recent “It” iteration (which Dauberman wrote the final draft of and has a sole writing credit on the upcoming “It: Chapter 2”), where the stellar “Stand By Me” dynamic between the young protagonists are interrupted roughly every ten minutes by a mediocre horror film. Following in the footsteps of series mastermind James Wan (who co-wrote the story), Dauberman certainly pulls out all the stops in turning this suburban home into a living nightmare, and it is not necessarily his fault that the relentless haunting by nameless ghouls and demons in this series is stale.
“Annabelle Comes Home” doesn’t reach heights of its bleak and haunting immediate predecessor, the David F. Sandberg-directed “Annabelle: Creation.” But, in harkening back to a younger-targeted horror film, it was never going to be as aggressively dark. If “Annabelle Comes Home” cannot capture the unease of top-tier ‘Conjuring’ movies, at the very least, mostly makes up for its flaws with charm and heart, aimed at a younger demo that doesn’t treat that audience as lesser-than (despite the R-rating, it’s rather tame). In that sense, the film succeeds as a fun, late-night moviegoing experience, though those looking for something more substantial or memorable, may want to just wait for the next ‘Conjuring’ film and hope it overcomes the hex of the series’ increasingly conventional routine. [C+]
