Annabelle Comes Home Movie Review: Too Many Ghosts Spoil the Broth

Annabelle Comes Home is the third film in the terrifying adventures of Annabelle, the haunted doll. The movie is better than The Nun and the first Annabelle movie, but if pitted against other The Conjuring universe films, it stands no chance. Annabelle Comes Home had the potential to turn the universe upside down as we know it. It had the potential to be the scariest movie in the series. But it doesn't make use of the golden opportunity. We get a story with multiple half-baked plot points driving it. Annabelle Comes Home New Clip: Lorraine is Convinced About the Doll Being a Beacon of Other Evil Spirits (Watch Video).

Annabelle Comes Home is entirely set inside the house of Ed and Lorraine Warren. Though, Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson reprise their roles only for a cameo. At the thick of the horror this time is Warren's daughter, Judy played by Mckenna Grace, who is trapped in her house with Annabelle on the lose. Also, suffering the horrors with her are the babysitter Mary Ellen played by Madison Iseman and her friend Daniela, played by Katie Sarife. Annabelle uses all the possible haunted and cursed artefacts in the Warren house to terrorise the three girls.  Annabelle Comes Home Actor Madison Iseman Shares a Frightening Moment From the Sets.

The buildup is slow and full of scary moments. And that is the part of the problem. With so much of build up, there is no pay off in the end. Annabelle Comes Home completely loses steam in the climax. I expect a movie to have ten small scary moments building up to a climactic scary moment big enough to make one pee in the pants. Annabelle's climactic sequence only looks like the eleventh small scary moment building up to the end.

The movie has numerous unexplained plot points. The Warrens come across a road accident in the beginning. Daniela's father died in a car accident around the same time. These two incidents could have been the same, but we don't know for sure. Daniela is stopped from picking up the call from a cursed phone and we have no idea what would have happened if she had picked up. There is a ghoul known as The Bride in the film, but no explanation on why she'd ask Judy," Missed me?". Mary hears a tape recording of an exorcism with no further addition to the plot. Daniela tells Mary that she looks like one of the girls in Warrens' case files and with no further exploration of this. And just so much of this is thrown into the mix without a proper explanation.

Anabelle Comes Home seems like the onset of other Conjuring spin-offs such as The Bride, The Feely Meely game, the future showing TV, the hound. I have definitely missed a few. The movie is a montage of moments building up to a jump scare.

The background score, like in all Conjuring movies, is quite impactful. The cinematography is good. The acting by the main leads is brilliant. There is some comic relief in the film, which also serves good.

Yay

Anabelle continues to look creepy, enough to make you squirm

Acting is good

Nay

Loose ends in maximum capacity

Not scary enough

Not funny enough

Watch The Trailer of Annabelle Comes Home:

Final Thoughts

Anabelle Comes Home is not the movie that will scare the daylights out of you. It's not the kind of campy horror film that has enough fun with itself for you to enjoy. You can watch it, because obviously, you want to stay on course with The Conjuring universe, which has so much future potential. Despite the flaws, it delivers just enough fun to watch it on discounted tickets with a bunch of friends.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jun 27, 2019 03:38 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).