Well, after the unprecedented success of Ouija: Origin Of Evil from last year, a film that I still absolutely adore, I figure it’s about
time to put that hope for better cinema into practice. Between Origin Of Evil showing that it is still possible to make a prequel film that outshines the original and the general
unpredictability surrounding a lot of this year’s releases, I have more than
enough reason to believe that, in spite of how lame the original film was, this
film could still turn out alright. So, let’s take a look at this latest horror
film from the director of Lights Out… wow. I think I just set a world record
for the fastest loss of optimism on that one, but let’s press on anyway.
The plot: Twelve years after the tragic death of their
daughter, dollmaker Samuel (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Esther (Miranda
Otto) welcome six orphaned girls and their carer Sister Charlotte (Stephanie
Sigman) into their home. However, as they get settled in, orphan Janice
(Talitha Bateman) finds a strange doll hidden inside the house and before too
long, strange and creepy things start to occur.
For as surprisingly recognisable as the bigger roles are,
there’s nothing too special to be said about the acting here. LaPaglia and Otto
do well at showing how Annabelle ended up affecting them in a number of ways,
and while Otto doesn’t waste any of the precious bits of screen time she gets,
LaPaglia is seriously trying to channel Liam Neeson in his line delivery,
something that is never not distracting. Sigman as the Sister in charge of the
orphans is pretty solid, Bateman does well with the possession angle she’s
given, and Wilson (yes, that Lulu
Wilson from Origin Of Evil; it’s like the film is actively trying to make me
give it a chance at this point) fits in nicely after the narrative baton gets
passed to her.
Shame the other orphans aren’t this appealing, though,
particularly Grace Fulton and Philippa Coulthard as Carol and Nancy
respectively. Aside from being way
too old for their roles as young orphans (it’s difficult even buying them as
teenagers), they end up being two more instances of the catty Mean Girl that,
likewise, feels out of place in a film like this, especially in this setting.
The original Annabelle’s attempt at horror was… muddled, to
say the bloody least. I mean, the elevator scene that drags on for far too long
in that movie is still one of the better pieces of unintentional comedy I’ve
seen in a horror flick. Now, while this doesn’t contain anything nearly that
ridiculous, it still carries over some of that film’s biggest problems. It
operates rather strictly to its own Rule Of Three, in that it will frequently
show the exact same image (usually of the titular doll) over and over again
until the last iteration where something actually happens.
On the surface,
there’s nothing wrong with this; hell, being able to make inaction scary is a sign of a good filmmaker. However, this ends up
going too far in that direction, to the point where the majority of what we see
isn’t scary because no actual threat is posed. Sure, once we get to the final
reel and everything hits the fan, the tension gets paid off, but unfortunately
most of it ends up feeling like the audience is just waiting for the other shoe
to drop. You might be able to hear me groan as you read that last sentence,
since one of the scares in the film involves literally waiting for a second shoe to drop to the ground. Granted,
it’s not nearly as heavy in terms of pointless jump scares that plagued a lot
of the original, but what’s left over isn’t enough to engage.
What doesn’t help the film’s wonky attempt to frighten is
that, at its core, this isn’t a story meant for a feature-length release. The
narrative involving Annabelle, her parents, and what they did after she died is
a decent bit of horror setup, but the film never really does anything with it.
Instead, likely because the filmmakers know that they don’t have a lot to
extrapolate that tidbit into something meatier, we spend most of the film with
that main conceit being hinted at over and over again without doing anything with
it. Most of what we get in relation to this is the orphans and occasionally the
Sister wandering around the house, essentially looking for plot and largely
coming out empty-handed.
This ends up getting worse once it settles in that,
beneath the surface, there is
something more that could be utilised. Taking notions of faith and sin that
usually come packaged with stories about demonic possession and giving them a
good few tweaks, we get hints of the kind of layering that served this film’s
older brother The Conjuring so well. But that’s only in passing, as the film
seems far more interested in what is basically ‘meme horror’. It keeps trying
to show the same images and ideas throughout the film, with barely any of them
even amounting to anything, and thinking that that alone is enough. As much as
I find the idea of ‘meme horror’ as shown here to be somewhat interesting, that
doesn’t automatically make it worth sitting through… not yet, at least.
All in all, while a mild improvement over the first
Annabelle, and most certainly an easier sit than the finish of cat’s piss that
is Lights Out, this still isn’t all that good. The acting is fine, some of the
scares are at least serviceable and there’s traces of bigger themes in certain
scenes, but overall, it’s pretty lacklustre and unfortunately dull horror
flick.
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