Halloween is right around the corner, which means it's horror movie season! And what's more frightening and gripping than watching another creepy doll wreak havoc upon innocent people?
The R-rated Annabelle, a The Conjuring prequel and spinoff, hits theaters on Friday, Oct. 3. In the new movie, the lives of John, played by Ward Horton, his wife Mia, played by Annabelle Wallis, and their baby are terrorized by the vintage, pig-tailed doll, seen in the first film. The creepy toy, is, of course, possessed and sparks terrifying, supernatural events...namely the arrival of members of a satanic cult to their home. There's also a particularly shocking scene that features Mia when she's pregnant.
Horton is also known for his role as Dean Trayger on The Young and the Restless and also played a broker in the 2013 film The Wolf of Wall Street. Wallis, a British actress, played Jane Seymour on The Tudors and Bridget on the short-lived series Pan Am and had a small role in X-Men: First Class.
Annabelle was directed by John R. Leonetti and also stars Alfre Woodard, known for roles in movies such as Star Trek: First Contact and 12 Years a Slave and shows such as Desperate Housewives and True Blood, Kerry O'Malley, who plays bartender Kate on Showtime's Shameless and Tony Amendola, who plays Geppetto on Once Upon a Time.
The 2013 film The Conjuring , which starred Oscar nominee Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, made $318 million worldwide. A sequel is also set to be released, in 2015. The first movie received mostly positive reviews from top critics. What did they think about Annabelle? Check out 5 reviews below.
1. Variety's Scott Foundas says that in Annabelle, the "scares are cheap but periodically effective" and that the movie "(partly) makes up in crude shock effects what it lacks in craft, atmosphere and just about every other department."
"But when it comes to Annabelle's five or six big stinger moments, Leonetti manages to deliver the jolts, and if audiences are sure to head home complaining about how dumb and predictable it all was, many may also find themselves nursing their significant others' lightly bruised forearms," he added.
2. Time Out New York's Joshua Rothkopf gives Annabelle two out of five stars.
"Centrally, the title character remains an impressive piece of prop work, and Leonetti's restraint in never animating it (à la Chucky) is the only thing worth appreciating here," he writes. "Meanwhile, the human beings—including Alfre Woodard as a handy local bookstore owner and occultist—feel as plastic as Barbie dolls."
3. The Boston Globe's Peter Keough gives Annabelle two out of four stars and states that the doll "looks like Jack Nicholson's Joker in a frilly dress." The "scariest aspect of the film," he says, is "its misogyny."
The director, who worked as a cinematographer on The Conjuring, "surpasses" the first movie "stylistically" Keough says.
"A sequence in a basement is particularly unnerving, until fear turns to hilarity when an elevator door opens and shuts once too often, and a demon resembling Nightcrawler from the X-Men shows up," he writes. "And though it features a plucky female protagonist, Annabelle still possesses the same medieval attitude toward women as The Conjuring, reducing the gender to the extremes of self-sacrificing mother and malevolent toy."
"Then again, the story takes place in 1969, when the women's lib movement was barely underway," he adds. "So maybe the film's sexism is period detail."
4. The Los Angeles Times' Robert Abele writes that Annabelle marks "a guided tour of the era's possession-saga aesthetics: old-school wide shots, loud noises, showy shocks and quieter creeps. It lacks the exhilarating pull of The Conjuring, but as a side dish of demon-doll supernatural, it suffices."
5. The Hollywood Reporter's Frank Scheck cited what he called Annabelle's "cast of unknowns, adding, "It's as if they thought the doll alone could carry the movie, but Annabelle is no Chucky."
He says the movie contains "horror movie clichés" and that "despite the gimmicky nature of the proceedings, they're undeniably effective, especially in a packed theater filled with genre fans essentially begging to be terrified."
"But the film is ultimately so generic and formulaic that you'll probably forget it by the time you get home," he adds. "Equally unmemorable are the bland performances by the two leads, who never manage to elicit the necessary sympathy for their characters' plight."