ANNABELLE

CONTAINS SOME SPOILERS AND OH GOD IT'S BEHIND YOU

The number of horror films that have had me leaving the lights on overnight has been very small, even over the thirty years that I've been watching horror movies on a pretty regular basis. Splattery gore epics and slashers have never given me sleepless nights, and I don't even think I've ever had a nightmare stemming from a late-night rewatch of The Evil Dead or A Nightmare On Elm Street. But in recent years there have been a welcome few that have seeped back in my mind unbidden, and two of the most effective have been from the James Wan/Leigh Whannell Axis Of Creepiness. And I don't mean the Saw movies. The first Insidious pulled off the effect brilliantly, once in the film itself and then several nights later when I was alone in my flat. And to a lesser extent The Conjuring, which royally creeped me out in the cinema though I didn't suffer afterwards to the same extent.

Annabelle takes the terrifying-looking doll from the opening of The Conjuring, and makes it/her the conduit for an evil spirit looking for a soul. It's 1970 and the expectant Gordons acquire an Annabelle doll, supposedly a rare collector's item but in reality a freaky-looking porcelain nightmare than any faintly sentient person would chuck into a blast furnace before ever bringing it into their house. Then a pair of Mansonite occultists bursts in and attack them, blood gets on the doll and it seems then to be possessed. Spooky stuff starts happening: doors open, rocking chairs move, appliances come on by themselves....

It isn't in the same chilling league as The Conjuring, but it's still pretty creepy while it's on, with nice period detail and one genuinely "can't look, must look" sequence with a near-invisible demon in the basement. Because the Wan/Whannell films locate their horrors in recognisable, mundane realities rather than apocalyptic zombie wastelands or shadowy vampiric castles, they simply suggest that these hauntings, possessions and demonic infestations could as easily happen to you as to the average families in the films. And it works. But for all that, and the obvious nods to Rosemary's Baby (the couple are Mia and Jon Gordon, closely referencing the three stars of the Polanski film) it's not as downright unsettling as Insidious or The Conjuring were. It's a perfectly decent, solid multiplex horror movie, but I didn't really need the lights on afterwards and I don't think there's much further mileage in any more Annabelle movies.

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