Annabelle

I'm a horror movie fan - I'm a fan of the original evil dead trilogy to Romero to Poltergeist, korean horror, french horror etc... I'm also a fan of the new wave of horror. I'm a fan of the Conjuring as it was a film that made me think the art of a horror movie is back.

First off... this isn't made by James Wan... it's made by it's filmographer so off of the bat you're probably going to get some cool scenes but perhaps lack of character development. The budget of Annabelle is $5 million (that's 1/4 of what the Conjuring cost). Let me tell you the script is the weakest part of this film.

The movie starts off slow... this is where the film should really get you into the characters but there isn't much here, it's generic. It's the weakest part of the film. You have your standard couple... man goes to work, woman stays home and experiences weird stuff. The problem with this is that it's hard for you to bother to relate to the characters. This kind of kills the film for me. There were actually a lot that could have been explored but they didn't touch like the kids in the apartment.

Now the good. There is very little CGI - perhaps none. It's all old school. This is something that anyone could actually film.... chair moving, oven is on, someone standing there. It's good. It works. There's a great scene here with a baby. Are there enough scares? Not really. The pay off for the film felt like they might have fixed the movie for censors but even though the film is Rated R.

There's a lot missing in this film. It's not horrible. It's worth a rental. It's your average horror movie.

Annabelle wants to ride the success of The Conjuring, but ends up missing everything that made it work. Where The Conjuring had heart, atmosphere, and characters we cared about, Annabelle feels empty - a horror movie that goes through the motions.

There's no meaningful character design, no suspenseful buildup, and almost zero emotional connection to the central couple.

The plot is thin, the mystery is practically nonexistent, and the scares rely entirely on loud stingers and shadowy figures popping up on cue.

It feels like the filmmakers knew the story wasn't strong enough, so they overloaded it with cheap jump scares to keep audiences alert. But without tension or stakes, those scares don't land - they just get repetitive.

Annabelle has the creepy doll, sure, but without compelling storytelling, it's just a prop in a movie that forgets to build anything around it.

Horror is one of my favorite movie genres. I really wasn't expecting to hate this as much as I did but it is astonishingly terrible. Really. I loved The Conjuring - this is nothing like The Conjuring. At all. It's a blatant cash-grab and a terrible one at that.

There is zero tension throughout this movie. Zero suspense. Everything is reliant on close ups of the dolls face to "creep" us out and really long periods of time where NOTHING HAPPENS. Literally, it's about this couple that we do not care about and their stupid problems which we care even less about. I don't know if they were trying to build suspense in these scenes but in order to build suspense you actually have to care about the characters. Or at least have, you know, suspense; a lingering sense of danger. This had nothing. And holy hell that ending.

The positives of this movie: The lead girl is beautiful. She's easy to look at. The soundtrack is pretty cool too. That's it. The characters are horrendous and the acting is even worse. Seriously if you're going to make a movie this awful at least have the decency to take an acting lesson or two. It's a dreadful watch. Please, don't waste your time with this cash grab sh*t stain. Don't give them the satisfaction. Watch something good like Sinister or 1408 - haunting movies done right.

Enjoyable horror flick that was pretty creepy and suspenseful with some good jump scares and jaw-dropping moments. also completely breaks the cliche of the annoying skeptical husband/boyfriend, that made me happy (2 viewings, 6/20/2020)

Re-watched this one recently and now I remember why it didn't really leave an impression like it's sequels. as the first of the trilogy it had the burden of building the characters and world up, which it failed to do. none of the characters felt fleshed out, leaving the viewer to not really care what happens to any of them. for most of the film you feel as if you're watching a slice of life film instead of a horror one. it finally starts to pickup halfway through the film although the ending doesn't really feel earned and the conflict happens and dies out too quickly as if it remembered it had to happen. the second film did a way better job at being a spin-off film for this important entity of The Conjuring universe.