Review of Annabelle Comes Home (2019) by Theredsky — 22 Jul 2019

Annabelle Comes Home is fine. It’s not great but it’s not bad. Here are the negatives. The film starts to become over reliant on jump scares in the second half. Every other scene you are waiting for that jump scare and then boom jump scare.

This leads to the film being generally not scary and I don’t mean just jump scares. They aren’t a lot of concepts or ideas presented that are genuinely terrifying. That’s why films like The Shining, Get Out, and The Exorcist are legitimately terrifying because of the ideas that are presented in those films.

That’s not to say there aren’t interesting concepts presented in the film but that’s about it for them, concepts which leads to my next point. There are ideas presented in this film that really aren’t explored a lot.

The Chinese soldier armor, the TV that shows a couple seconds into the future, and the Cymbal Monkey are really interesting and cool but they aren’t explored a lot. The scenes with these objects are great but they are only on screen for about a minute or two and yes I know there might be films about those objects in the future but I wish we got to learn a little more about those objects.

Katie Sarife and Madison Iseman didn’t do that great of a job in this film. In some scenes they were decent but in others they weren’t even trying. The boyfriend subplot is just kinda dumb and he is only there to save a character in one scene and that is it.

The film is tonally inconsistent. About a minute after they defeat Annabelle, the main characters make jokes about going to homecoming. Some scenes are undercut by jokes and it’s obnoxious. Here are the positives.

I think the first 30 minutes of the film is fantastic. It’s paced really well, it’s creepy, and the performances are really good. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga do a great job in every scene they are in.

Mckenna Grace was also pretty good in this film. There are a couple of moments where she isn’t trying but for the most part she does a good job. As I said earlier, some of the ideas and concepts presented in this film are really interesting and I hope we get to learn more about them in the future.

There are a handful of good scares in the film but they come from the first half instead of the second half. The film does build up tension really well and makes the somewhat smart choice to cut out the music in these moments.

Unfortunately, these moments of tension are undercut by random jumpscares. You do get to see the demon towards the end of the film and the makeup on it looks pretty good. The cinematography is fine but there are a handful of really good shots in the film.

Overall, Annabelle Comes Home has a fantastic beginning but starts to rely on jump scares instead of diving into new and interesting concepts. I give Annabelle Comes Home a 5/10.