Annabelle (2014)

Elevator Pitch: When a young doctor, John Form,  presents his pregnant wife with an antique porcelain doll, of considerable size, strange things begin to happen, starting with an attack on their next door neighbours, who are killed. The police arrive and shoot one of the killers and the other cuts her own throat, while clutching the doll in the Form’s kitchen. The couple move, but even after the doll is thrown away, it reappears in their new flat, with more spooky goings on. They engage the help of a priest but when he is badly injured and their baby disappears what options are open to them?

Content: There is no sex or nudity, or drinking or smoking (I don’t think). Virtually the whole film taken up with people or things lurking about in semi-darkess, and the wife prowliing about in the apartment block on her own, when we think there should be people with her. And then some of those quiet, quiet, bump events, most of them pretty effective.

A View: Annabelle is appearing on our TVs at the moment because of the current film, which we went to see, and thought it was OK. This one is the second of the Conjouring franchise, the first of which included the doll. The numbers say it all again. The estimated budget was $6,500,000 and the worldwide gross was $256,873,813 (seems very accurate), and Rotten Tomatoes quite liked it, but not as much as the first film. It is fine for a watch for nothing, and it is one of those films which has covered its production costs on its first weekend.

Additional Info: The “real” Annabelle doll was a Raggedy Ann doll, and was consigned to a case by the Warrens in their Occult Museum.