Annabelle (2014) Movie Review

I wouldn´t say that Annabelle has become an influential icon of popular culture or something like that, however, the fame that this character has gained over time due to the movies of the universe of The Conjuring is undeniable. If I had to put it in a few words, Annabelle is one of those kind of mainstream films that doesn´t cost too much money to make and at the same time generate big profits, the difference between The Nun and the other films in this universe is that Annabelle is quite famous and its only name generates a lot of curiosity, so it all ends in generating an important box office to the studio.

If we follow the chronology, Annabelle (2014) is the sequel to Annabelle: Creation (2017). This film begins some time after the events of Annabelle: Creation (2017) and without giving many details of the narrative, the protagonists of this film are a married couple who will have a baby soon, they are involved with all the events of Annabelle by mere coincidence, even a connection is made with Annabelle: Creation (2017) so in terms of connections this movie is interesting, in the rest not so much.

src

One of the things I appreciated the most about Annabelle: Creation (2017) is that despite being a film that was more of the same, it made an effort to exceed the quality standards of its own universe, the film took its time to do a world building, introduce you to its characters and giving the story some sense and even expanding the lore, I also felt that the film didn´t abuse too much of jumpscares except for the last act. Annabelle (2014) prefers not to hide and show in all splendor how generic it can be, something that seemed curious to me is that from the first second the color palette is saturated wanting to give that air of something mature, but if you ask me, it gives that edgy feeling of a movie that tries to be adult but doesn´t succeed in quality standars.

From the first moment, you can see that the script is uhhh, not good, I would dare to say that it´s the one with the worst narrative, which if you think is sad because it´s not like the universe of The Conjuring specializes in telling stories that makes sense, getting back to the point, the film has many plot holes and it also have too many conveniences that ends up killing the little sense it had, everything I just said increases if you are following the chronology, it´s from this movie that I am noticing contradictions in the way they try to connect everything. This might sound weird but I didn´t like the design of the demon, it´s so generic, I felt that the studio looked at your average demon pic and said ¨this one is perfect¨, I didn´t like how Anabelle looked edgy either, I mean, in Annabelle: Creation (2017) it looked normal but in this movie feels they wanted to make it darker and all but it didn´t work for me.

src

It is difficult for me to find positive things in this movie but I will talk about something that I feel was good in the film and is the inclusion of Charles Manson, I found it quite interesting. For those who doesn´t know, Charles Mason was a serial murderer with extreme ideas, he thought he was the antichrist, he had a lot of charisma to the point of being the leader of a very dangerous sect in the 60s, Mason was a very dangerous man, he based his entire life on drugs and sex, he also encouraged his followers to follow that same lifestyle. Manson is usually differentiated from other serial killers because one of his murders marked a generation and today he is an icon of popular culture but not in a good way, if you want to know more about Charles Manson I invite you to read more about do it on your own. It's not like Annabelle (2014) has the best representation of Charles Manson in history but it´s okay enough.

src

I always think that no matter how bad a movie is, one must rescue the good things and keep them, however, with this one in particular, it is quite difficult for me to find something good, I would say that I liked the representation of the cult of Charles Manson but it is something that doesn´t have too much screentime in the film, on the other hand I like that they made an effort to connect the films no matter how weird everything is, that´s all, on the rest the film was quite mediocre even for the standards of The Conjuring, the next movie that I have to review is The Conjuring for which I am excited since they say it´s the best and on the other hand it is the one that started all of this.

src