Unseen Terror 2014: Day 3

One day after her husband returns from work, expectant mother Mia Gordon receives a surprise gift from her companion John: a rare antique doll, adjourned in a white dress with rosy cheeks and a distinguished-looking smile to boot. Their happiness is short-lived, however, when one random night, they are attacked in their home by a crazed woman and her partner. Though the couple is shot dead by the police, and the police begin to investigate the background and motives of this now-deceased maniacal duo, the Gordons feel the instinct to move from their neighborhood. Shortly after the birth of their daughter, and through police revelations, Mia begins to suspect that her new treasured possession could have served as a conduit for something far more sinister than anyone could have ever expected.


Do you remember last year's surprise hit (and surprisingly good) The Conjuring? Do you remember that doll that got about two minutes worth of screen time, receiving only a brief mention of its own horrendously frightening background? Well, director James Wan (Saw, Insidious) must have felt compelled to give you a full breakdown into said background, and thusly….wait, James Wan didn't direct this? He only produces it? Well, who did direct Annabelle?


*checks wikipedia*


Who the hell is John R. Leonetti?

Well, now that that….horrifying discovery is out of the way, how does Annabelle stack up to its companion piece/sequel of sorts?


For starters, I'll give cinematographer James Kniest, who has previously worked on Child's Play 3 (can't make that up), credit for setting up a good, mostly uneasy atmosphere, and making the audience feel fairly nervous once the shenanigans involving the occult begin to take effect on our poor, tortured, if not slightly white-bread family. There are also excellent scares in the form of an elevator sequence, and a couple of random jump scares, which are set up and work rather well considering that someone like myself doesn't care much for them anymore. And despite my intense dislike for this director, he does manage to stir up some competent performances from star Annabelle Wallis and her magical negro companion, played by veteran actress Alfre Woodard. Yes the main actress' real name is also Annabelle. I don't even know what to tell you there. Maybe it was pure coincidence. That or the casting director has a very sick sense of humor.


The decision to show essentially no movement of the doll herself is an interesting choice as well. As much as I love the Chucky doll from Child's Play (from which this borrows far too much), there are times when your suspension of disbelief wakes back up and you can't help but chuckle when you see him run or do anything active. I always wonder why most couples would ever think of keeping a doll that looks like Annabelle in the first place though. True, she starts off looking relatively normal, but the facial features start to droop over time, and it really isn't until the end of the picture when she starts to resemble the eerie-looking toy that we glanced at in The Conjuring. Take for example The Cabbage Patch Kids. They have rotund faces, and not an ounce of malice in their features. Keep one of them around, and I guarantee you that not a single evil spirit shall rear its horrific face. But I think I'm just entering rambling, nitpicker mode now, especially since the film establishes the fact that the doll isn't so easily discarded.


Alas, I think the main problem which does befall Annabelle was one that I was afraid of from the get-go: it just isn't very original. As I stated above, the main cast is more than capable of delivering the goods, but there is so little in the way of originality in the flick itself. Even the film's admittedly intense final act borrows heavily from certain pictures like Hellraiser and The Exorcist. Actually, now that I've mentioned it, there is a LOT borrowed from the latter, as well as Child's Play, The Changeling, Rosemary's Baby, and even its cousins in The Conjuring and Insidious. Yes, I stated in my reviews of the Mimic sequels that it's fine if you want to pay homage or rip off a classic, but there is a certain line you shouldn't cross, especially if it ends up coming from multiple, varied sources and it finds its way into something that is distributed to quite a good amount of theaters. Motion picture comparisons aside, I can give Leonetti, James Wan, and their associated crew credit for one other thing as well: they sure know how to create some incredibly lame-looking monsters. If you thought that the Darth Maul demon from Insidious looked outrageously silly, then you clearly aren't ready for their interpretation of Annabelle's "master."


In terms of theatrically-released horror films during the fall period, Annabelle is one of several out there to choose from. I can't say for certain that I'll be paying money to watch Kevin Smith's Tusk (I don't know if I can trust the man after his previous two duds), the upcoming remake of The Town That Dreaded Sundown (I have been hunting down the original for some time now), or the Michael Bay-produced Ouija (which was the only horror movie trailer attached to my screening), but I had no problem paying a little under eight dollars to see this fun, but very flawed companion piece to The Conjuring. Would I ever expect it to be held in the same breath as that surprisingly good ghost story? Absolutely not.



But it certainly beats being stalked by that much scarier Zuni doll from Trilogy of Terror.



Tomorrow, it's back to the bugs with the ever-so-gross The Nest!

The Conjuring (2013) Review

In 1971, married couple Carolyn and Roger Perron move into a new home in Rhode Island. Along with their five daughters, the family settle in well enough on the first day, but things go sour rather quickly. Several strange instances occur which lead the family to believe that the residence may be haunted by spirits, and they make the decision to contact paranormal researchers Ed & Lorraine Warren for help.

Forgive me if I sound like a broken record, but the state of paranormal horror films is in a bit of a conundrum at the moment. It seems like the reliance upon cheap scares has replaced good tension, characters have been getting progressively stupider and harder to relate to, and the insistency to crowbar in scenes of extreme violence from time to time seems rather unnecessary. I'm not going to name specific pictures (as I'm still adhering to my promise from the last review I did), but you can guess what I'm referring to. Add to that my mixed feelings on director James Wan's body of work prior to the release of The Conjuring, and you can understand why I may have been cautious of a viewing that would cost more than a single dollar or two. I never thought he had a proper understanding of what makes a truly scary ghost story.

I, however, would like to present my hat to Mr. Wan, before I promptly eat it. Or something like that.

Perhaps what really drove me to like this picture as much as I did is in relation to the paragraph above. The film does so much with so little, and I think Mr. Wan may be slowly turning into an honest-to-god good horror filmmaker. The scares in The Conjuring are very much based in the old ghost and demonic stories from back in the glory days of horror. I could spot nods to films like The Exorcist and The Changeling fairly easily, but most of what makes this film work isn't just similarities, but simple things like camera work, proper place of music, and a story that, while somewhat predictable in what is sure to come, still keeps your eyes glued to the screen and creeps you out more than most films released in theaters.

Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson have good chemistry with one another, and if you had told me they were based on a real-life couple, you could have genuinely shocked me. The fact that this case is "based on" true events does merit some investigation, but I'm willing to throw my skepticism to the side and just try to enjoy the film. I honestly couldn't recognize Ron Livingston at first, given that I haven't seen him in anything of note in at least.......five years? Perhaps even more, if you don't count straight-to-DVD pictures. It pains me to say that he was the weakest link in the cast, though it may be unfair considering his tormented wife is excellently played by Lily Taylor, and he suffers in comparison to her. It is easy to get somewhat lost by the fact that this couple has five daughters, and alas, not all of them receive an equal amount of screen time. True, this was the case of the story behind the film, but I'd personally sacrifice one or two underdeveloped daughters in favor of one that had more character.

The Conjuring's body count is shockingly low, as is the actual blood that is shed throughout its near two hour running time (why this earned an "R" rating is baffling to me), but the sign of true strength in a horror film, especially one that deals with the subjects brought up here, is that you don't need those in order to create great atmosphere and in order to scare the audience and make them jump. There's even a scene midway through the picture that answers the age old question of "Why don't you just move out of the haunted area?," something which has always drove me a little bonkers. Sadly, a large portion of the story's more interesting developments were spoiled by its own trailers, so if you have seen little-to-nothing in terms of promotion for this film, that may benefit your viewing experience.

I know a lot of people were very high on Wan's Insidious, but I believe this blows it out of the water in every way, shape, and form. Though Evil Dead still holds the spot for my personal favorite horror film released in 2013 (so far), I may have more respect for The Conjuring, solely because of being able to not just make a known hater of "Ghost Investigation" material like me intrigued by a case that is over forty years old, but for attempting to remind audiences of when and why these stories have frightened many generations' worth of human beings.