Annabelle Comes Home Review

Annabelle Comes Home Review

We’re almost done with the Conjuring review series. In just a couple of weeks, The Conjuring: Last Rites hits theaters. Today I’m reviewing the third and final film in the Annabelle trilogy, Annabelle Comes Home. If you’ve seen my reviews you know that I haven’t been too thrilled about several of the Conjuring spinoff films. How does Annabelle Comes Home compare to the other spin-offs? Let’s talk about it!

The Good

I’ll just start off by saying I thought Annabelle Comes Home was a really solid addition to the Conjuring franchise. It’s a bit of a weird entry in the franchise as it doesn’t feel like any other film in the franchise. This is probably the most fun and light hearted film in the franchise. Immediately when you call a horror film “fun and light hearted” people have questions as to what that means and if it’s a good thing. All of the other films have a darker tone to them, and this one doesn’t. I kind of dug that about the film and it has its own unique voice and vibe to it. This is the seventh film in the franchise and a majority of the film feel the same, they have a similar tone and vibe to them. It was really refreshing to get to Annabelle Comes Home and discover that it’s not more of the same. This is a very different entry in the franchise and I thought it worked. I could see more die hard horror fans being put off by this film and I totally understand why. For me, the more fun and jokey vibe this film is going for work and provides a fresh experience for this universe. 

Something that elevated this film was that The Warrens are a major part of it. The Warrens are obviously the lead in the main line Conjuring films and they have cameos in The Nun. But in this film The Warrens are the family that we’re following. Their daughter is the main character and Ed and Lorraine Warren are bookends in the film. Ed and Lorraine are EASILY the best characters of the franchise so getting to see another adventure with their family made the film pop. All of these films are period pieces, but the main line Conjuring films in particular use the period piece element the best. When you’re watching The Conjuring and The Conjuring 2 it’s obvious that you’re in a different time period and I don’t think any of the other Conjuring films are able to capture that. Despite Ed and Lorraine Warren being side characters you feel like you’re in their world and therefore I thought the adventure was more interesting because of it. We know Ed and Lorraine very well, we’ve spent time with their daughter so we care about them. Tied to that, the film doesn’t need to have much backstory so we’re able to get the creep and scare factor of the movie much quicker. 

From there, I think this film has one of the best sets of characters in the Conjuring universe. The lead character is Judy Warren, the daughter of Ed and Lorraine played by McKenna Grace. She’s established herself as one of the best young actresses in Hollywood, notably with the recent Ghostbusters films. She’s really talented and I think she’s going to have a bright future ahead. I thought they set up a really interesting character arc for her. She’s a kid where her parents are famous for being involved with this witchcraft scary stuff. They explore this idea of how that would affect their kid with it being harder for her to make friends because their parents are scared of Judy and her family. They explore that idea through her birthday coming up and I thought it was this interesting arc. It makes sense within the franchise and I wish the main-line Conjuring films explored this idea further. Madison Iseman is the babysitter in the film, she’s Bethany from the recent Jumanji films. She’s able to be convincing as the babysitter who’s responsible and nice. With what the script demands from her, she’s able to pull it off. There’s a number of other teenagers that appear in the film who had a quirk or something about them that made them stand out. It’s great to have Vera Fermiga and Patrick Wilson in here for a little bit, they probably only have like 10 minutes of screen time but it’s great to see more of them. None of them are giving mind blowing best of the year performances but for what the movie requires from them, the whole cast does a really good job. 

Finally, the film has a really nice sense of humor. Like I said earlier, this is probably the most light hearted film in the franchise. Part of that is because it has this quirky odd sense of humor about it. There’s a character in the film named Bob (not played by Lewis Pullman) and his nickname Bob Gots Balls. It’s this running joke in the film that everybody knows his nickname and it’s just funny. There’s all sorts of little jokes in the film that people could argue don’t belong in a Conjuring film, but for what the film’s tone is I thought it worked and it made me laugh. 

The Bad

The big thing here is given the inherent nature of the Annabelle doll, it means that she’s not very active in the plot or all that scary. The only reason why she’s kind of scary is because dolls can be scary and because her face is scary. But she’s the one manipulating every evil soul and demon to do something evil. If that’s the only power that she has then obviously there’s not much you can do in the film but it means that all of the other scary things are more interesting than the title character. It feels like with this film, they used all of the creepy demon creatures to tease a possible spinoff. There’s this bit with this bloody bride that felt like they were teasing and maybe setting up a spinoff. The individual sequences aren’t bad. The standout sequence would be the tv sequence with the babysitter’s friend that had some cool images to it. I just wish they found a way to make Annabelle herself more interesting and present in the film. Now having seen the final film in her trilogy, that's one frustration I feel like I have with the trilogy as a whole. 

The other problem here is the babysitter’s friend, Daniela, is probably one of the worst and most stupid characters in this franchise. The only reason why most of this stuff can take place is because she messes with The Warren’s relict room and opens Annabelle’s case. If she hadn’t done that the movie wouldn’t have taken place. They try to have a reason here about why she is the way that she is. They give her a dark backstory and give her a character arc. But the film just slows down and gets a lot more dramatic then I think it needed to in order to explain why she is the way that she is. Perhaps if the film wasn’t as light as it was then it could’ve worked, but just randomly including her and her brother’s backstory felt very out of place in the film and she would’ve been an even stupider character without it, but I don’t think the film or her benefited by her backstory being in there. 

Final Thoughts: Annabelle Comes Home is probably my favorite film in the Annabelle trilogy. It’s a very different film from what I was expecting and from other films in the franchise and I really liked that about the film. The film has its own voice and I appreciated that about the film so much. It’s not perfect, it’s not as good as the main line Conjuring films but for what the film was I thought it was good and I had a good time. 

The Score: 8.4/10 (B)