Writer-director James Wan has cornered the market on commercial horror, with ‘torture-porn’ standard-bearer Saw and the camp, jolting Insidious.
Last year saw the release of Wan’s haunted house romp The Conjuring, one of the highest grossing horror films of all time. A follow-up was inevitable. Alas, this prequel was not directed by Wan and suffers for it.
John R. Leonetti, cinematographer on both Insidious and The Conjuring, takes the reins from Wan – and borrows a great deal from other directors, too. Annabelle feels endlessly, unavoidably derivative, eschewing the atmospheric, slow-building dread of The Conjuring in favour of cheap and easy jump-scares and a smorgasbord of tired genre clichés.
The plot centres on a well-to-do 1960s couple Mia and John (Annabelle – yes really – Wallis and Ward Horton), whose lives are upturned when Mia’s doll, Annabelle, becomes possessed. Fearing a Pippi Longstocking-Chucky hybrid wasn’t quite enough to make audiences jump, screenwriter Gary Dauberman throws in Manson-like cults, haunted basements, enigmatic priests, child demons, gliding baby carriages and creaky rocking chairs. It feels like Brain De Palma and Don Mancini (creator of ‘Chucky’) were stuck in a blender and simply poured over the screen.
While Wallis conveys Mia’s isolation and fear, Leonetti’s directing is surprisingly awkward. Juddering camera movements, odd lighting and confusing cuts undermine the fluidity he brought to Wan’s films, and render his already cheap scares even less effective.