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Oh, the horror: Rashid Irani reviews Annabelle Comes Home
Expect dialogue so stilted, and effects so tacky, that the only scary thing will be the prospect of sitting through the rest of the fiasco as it unfolds.
It’s business as usual in the third installment of this lackluster horror franchise. The demonic doll Annabelle features in a stream of ineffective jump scares, backed by a soundtrack that is simply cacophonic.
Scriptwriter-turned-director Gary Dauberman embraces every genre convention. The result is stilted dialogue, a fog-enshrouded neighbourhood, and yet nothing that scares — except perhaps the prospect of sitting through the rest of the fiasco as it unfolds.
The storyline factors in the demonologist couple (Vera Farmiga-Patrick Wilson) from the Conjuring universe in which the doll was introduced, as well as their preteen daughter and her two best friends. All hell breaks loose after Annabelle, a beacon for evil spirits, is accidentally let out of a glass cabinet in the basement.
Cue shrieking girls, doors that creak open of their own volition. There’s even a shadowy werewolf. And yet, if anything about this movie haunts you, it will most likely be the abominable performances across the board.
