Annabelle Comes Home takes the elements of classic horror films about teen babysitters in trouble, and raises the level of stakes by placing them in Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lauren Warens (Vera Farmiga) home full of haunted things. These familiar elements are intertwined and culminated in the fun, refreshing, and even heart-wrenching movie from The Conjuring. Excellent surprise horror elements and a sense of humor that breaks tension together, we even see some new monsters (who may be fuel for an upcoming segment). Annabelle Comes Home can be considered a summer horror movie that is not quite serious and suitable for anyone looking to laugh a little and be scared a lot.
The film continues shortly after the end of The Conjuring, but most of the story takes place before The Conjuring 2. Lauren (a clairvoyant among this ghost-chasing duo) realizes that Annabelle is not just a conduit, but also a beacon for other spirits. The puppet is like Captain America of the universe, which shouts the equivalent of "Avengers gathered" into the spirit world.
Of course, not all spirits are evil, but some are really bad. It is for this reason that Annabelle is the most dangerous thing in the Warriors group. Considering that trying to destroy the doll will only make everything worse, the Warriors place it in a sealed glass box with a spell with a sign warning anyone who might somehow enter their room full of damned things never remove it. But this warning was clearly not sufficient.
The Warns spouses leave town overnight and leave their 10-year-old daughter Judy (McKenna Grace) with babysitter Mary Eileen (Madison Eisman). She's a trustworthy girl, so the Warriors shouldn't have anything to worry about, right? Error! Mary Ellen's best friend Daniela (Katie Sariff) comes in early evening and seems very curious about what is in that room. An often predictable chain of events leads to the release of Annabelle. Suddenly, we're in this 1970's teen horror movie.
While Annabelle's previous films have suffered from complex and ambiguous plots about a satanic entity with mostly unclear motives (except for her constant quest to collect human souls), Annabelle Comes Home is simple. The house itself is haunted because it is full of haunted things, which were placed there on purpose by adults investigating those haunted things. Although characters for many reasons cannot simply escape screaming, they are not completely ignorant of this paranormal state. Although the entire plot centers on one person doing a really stupid act, the movie does explain its motives.
And this obvious plot is welcome in a series in which I still wonder why anyone would think making or owning this doll was totally normal in the first place. I mean, look at her! And do you remember how in Cabin in the Woods the basement was filled with just haunted things just waiting to be activated? Thanks to Annabelle's role as a beacon, the movie would have been more like what happened there if the characters had managed to activate them all at once.
Scary things come slowly, maybe even slower. But once it is all done, the movie offers highly creative and beautifully illustrated terrifying scenes. Having so many entities allows each character to have their own unique moment while preparing for new upcoming parts, such as The Nun , The Curse of La Llorona, and the upcoming movie The Crooked Man.
As in previous Conjuring films, the best horror moments are the quiet ones that are built through layers of escalating dread, and while the computer-generated horror moments are bigger, but not necessarily better. My favorite terrifying moment was having something seemingly innocent but you know it will cause disaster later, and when that happens, you don't know whether you want to laugh or hide.
Annabelle Comes Home is still terrifying in every way that fans have come to expect the series, but it also offers a kind of sense of humor (especially when it comes to the plight of Michael Cimino, a cute teenage neighbor who likes Mary Allen and hopes to take the opportunity to invite her out on a date) that no. We usually see her in this kind of sinister movie.
Conclusion
The Conjuring franchise has long struggled with its inability to outrun its first movie, The Conjuring (2013). In the genre of films, which even fans like me admit to being vulnerable to success or failure with every part, The Conjuring was a very scary movie about a house. Masoun was a huge success. Such a success can be difficult to replicate, which is why it is so refreshing and wonderful that Annabelle Comes Home offers something different. Instead of trying to outgrow The Conjuring, it changes its approach to a lighter, simpler, and more fun story with an uncomplicated plot and some new monsters (some of which myth fans will recognize). If Annabelle Comes Home is the latest installment in the Annabelle doll-focused movie series, it sounds like the perfect ending.