A killer doll story lacking fright
Killer dolls, wicked dolls, possessed dolls. Oh, were we to be rid of thee! The freaky doll story has been part of the horror movie genre for decades. Remember 1945's Dead of Night or Richard Attenborough's 1978 thriller, Magic, starring Anthony Hopkins as a deranged ventriloquist?
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Killer dolls, wicked dolls, possessed dolls. Oh, were we to be rid of thee!
The freaky doll story has been part of the horror movie genre for decades. Remember 1945's Dead of Night or Richard Attenborough's 1978 thriller, Magic, starring Anthony Hopkins as a deranged ventriloquist?
The subgenre hit its stride in the late '80s with Dolls, Puppetmaster, Death Doll, and, of course, the film that brought us Chucky, Child's Play.
Sadly, the cosmos isn't finished with those diminutive creepazoids.
Last year's The Conjuring offered a glimmer of hope. Directed by young horror auteur James Wan (Saw, Insidious) and starring a roster of strong actors including Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga, Ron Livingston, and Lili Taylor, it used the possessed-doll premise to great effect and succeeded in transcending the limits of that tired subgenre.
Sadly, Annabelle, a cheap, sleazy, low-budget prequel meant to explain the origins of that particular doll, is as undistinguished, uninteresting, and unscary as the worst of the Chucky films.
Produced by Wan and directed by Mortal Kombat: Annihilation helmer John R. Leonetti, Annabelle is set in the late 1960s and tells the sorry tale of a young medical student (Ward Horton) whose pregnant wife (Annabelle Wallis) has a large collection of bizarre dolls.
Things go bump, grind, chop, slash, and ouch in the night when the couple's neighbors are slaughtered by their devil-lusting daughter, Annabelle Higgins, and her occultist pals.
The violence spills into our young couple's house, where Annabelle expires.
She happens to die in the baby's nursery, in full view of the sweet couple's latest doll, an awful-looking antique creature that appears designed for death and destruction.
And so it was: Annabelle's evil oozes into the doll, making it, em, er . . . evil.
The rest is as predictable as it gets.
Annabelle *1/2 (out of four stars)
Directed by John R. Leonetti. With Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Tony Amendola, Alfre Woodard. Distributed by Warner Bros.
Running time: 1 hour, 38 mins.
Parent's guide: R (intense sequences of disturbing violence and terror).
Playing at: area theatears.
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