Shoddy spirits don’t mix well together
The Annabelle series has been on shaky ground; the first flick was criminally dull but I actually quite enjoyed the second.
Sadly, the roller coaster ride heads back downhill with this over-stuffed latest entry.
Conjuring universe stalwarts Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson make a welcome return as demonologists Lorraine and Ed Warren – featuring in a creepy opening set alongside a cemetery – but unfortunately don’t stick around for very long.
Instead, we’re left with a relatively unknown young cast who struggle to take up the Warrens’ mantle.
We’re an hour in and barely anything has happened beyond the titular doll flopping forward; and the scariest thing on show is the seventies’ wallpaper.
Writer-director Gary Dauberman – helming his first movie – deserves praise, though, for predominately using a single location that embodies claustrophobia, and tight framing that makes the small house’s tiny hallways feel like Shining-esque never-ending corridors.
But he over-uses the characters appearing and moving in the background trope – and loud noises as a scare tactic.
Dauberman and horror maestro James Wan’s (Saw, The Conjuring) script spends too much time on set-up and things we don’t care about, like a teenybopper romance and unfunny comedy.
There are more spirits than you can shake a cross at; some – a ferryman with coins on his eyes, a runaway bride – are very effective while others aren’t; did we really need to see a badly-rendered hell hound? Or the criminally underused “Feeley Meeley” board game?
You know something isn’t right when the biggest question you’re asking when leaving the cinema is, ‘why would you let your kid live in a house overflowing with evil?’
If you only see one creepy doll horror at the flicks then make it the vastly superior Child’s Play. Real-life couple Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem dazzle in a kidnapping thriller that will keep you on your toes.
It’s just a shame the film moves at a glacial pace and outstays its welcome.