[HorrorScience] Annabelle (2014)

This week we are almost opening inHorrorScience, since on this occasion I will talk about Annabelle, the recent film by John R. Leonetti that is both a sequel and a spin-off of the successful The Conjuring (The spell either Warren File) and which was released in theaters a little over a month ago. James Wan, who was the director of the previous film in this saga, in this case plays the role of producer, and must be quite happy because the film cost 6 and a half million dollars and has already grossed more than 85 million in the United States alone, so we can be sure that we are facing a box office success that will most likely have a sequel in the near future.

The film stars a young couple, Mia (Annabelle Wallis) and John (Ward Horton). Mia is pregnant with her first child, she spends most of the day doing various tasks at home, and John, on the other hand, spends a lot of time outside because he is doing an internship at a hospital to gain experience and a position as a doctor at that institution, and that sometimes takes him more hours than expected.

The story begins by showing us a scene that also appears in its sequel, where two young women and a man are being interviewed by Ed and Lorraine Warren, a couple of parapsychologists, about a doll that the young women have named Annabelle, and which according to them is possessed by some kind of demonic entity.

After the previous sequence, the film will begin to show us the events that occurred a year earlier, starting with Mia and John attending mass at the local church and having a happy life while awaiting the birth of their son. We will also meet our protagonists' friendly neighbors, Sharon (Kerry O'Malley) and Pete Higgins (Brian Howe), who take Mia and John home after church. We are in the early 70s, and at night, while Mia and John are having breakfast, the news of various murders that are related to a satanic sect, specifically the disastrous and famous sect "The Family" led by Charles Manson, one of the most well-known murderers in American history. John asks Mia to turn off the TV because he is studying for his job and can't concentrate. After a comment that John makes about the difficulty that being a father will represent, what seemed like it was going to end in a couple's argument ends with John giving his wife a doll that she, a fan of collecting antique dolls, had wanted for a long time and couldn't get anywhere.

The doll in question is Annabelle, but at the time it's not called that, and actually the name doesn't apply to the doll itself, but to the spirit attached to it, but that will come later because for now it's just another doll.

One night, while Mia and John are sleeping, from their bedroom window they can see the window of the neighboring house where the Higginses live. Sharon and Pete are there, they just turned on the light, and from their reaction it seems that they heard that someone entered their house. We can see that Pete says something to his wife, and leaves the room, while she picks up the phone and makes a call, but is soon a figure violently bursts into the place and he throws himself at her, wielding a knife, while Sharon screams and the light goes out. There are a couple more noises and then there is only silence.

The neighbor's scream wakes up Mia, and she in turn wakes up John and tells him that there were noises and a scream at the neighbors' house. They both go out to see what's going on, and John enters the Higgins house, which has the front door open while Mia watches from the door of her house. After a few seconds Mia gets impatient and heads to the neighbors' house, but before she gets there John runs away, with blood on hands and clothes, and tells Mia not to worry, that's not her blood, and to run to the house and quickly call the emergency room while he goes back inside to see if he can help his neighbors. Mia then quickly goes home, and calls 911 saying that there is an emergency, that she doesn't know what is happening but there is a lot of blood, and gives her address, and while she is talking on the phone we can see that someone broke into your house.

Mia finishes talking on the phone, goes to her room and grabs a robe from the closet, but when she turns around she finds a woman holding the doll in her arms, and a man comes out of the closet behind her, with bloody clothes, and stabs her in the side of her abdomen. John arrives and pounces on the attacker., hitting him with her fists, but Mia is on the ground, hurt and confused, and when she tries to grab the knife that the murderer dropped the woman who was holding the doll grabs it first, so John now throws himself at her and punches her. The man then picks up a heavy object from the room, and hits John in the legs, causing him to fall. It's two against one, because Mia is unable to do anything in her state of shock, and When it seems that everything will end badly, two police officers arrive and one kills the murderer with several shots. just before he hits Mia in the head, while the other starts banging on the door of the room where the doll woman locked herself when she heard them enter. Finally the second policeman manages to open the door, and moments later we see that the woman committed suicide by cutting her throat, and is sitting leaning against the wall, where He drew a symbol with his blood, and with the doll in her lap, a drop of blood falls on one of her eyes.

Already at the hospital we see that nothing has happened to the baby in Mia's womb, but now Mia has to rest for a while because of the injury she suffered. A TV news report informs us of the murder that occurred, and we will find out that the murderers were Annabelle Higgins, the neighbors' daughter who had run away from home a long time ago, and her partner, and that they both belonged to some kind of demonic cult.

The next day Mia asks John to get rid of the doll, because the murderer had had it in her hands, and he accepts and throws it in the trash can. Later some kind of supernatural force starts a fire in the house when Mia was alone, and tries to drag her into the fire, but apparently some people passing by noticed the fire and entered the house in time to get Mia out and take her to the hospital. John runs over, and when he arrives he finds his wife, who is safe and sound, and who had given birth to a girl. She tells him what happened, and tells him that she can no longer live in that house, not with the baby, to which he responds that she won't have to.

In the next scene we see that both They have moved to an apartment in Pasadena, California, and there their lives begin to change, with John working long shifts and Mia spending a lot of time alone at home. At one point she begins to arrange her dolls on the shelves in a room, and in one of the boxes Annabelle appears, and even though John is sure that she threw it in the trash and they don't know how it got there again, Mia decides to keep it. It is from that moment that a series of supernatural events begin to occur that threaten the lives of Mia and Leah, her baby, since the doll is not only possessed by the ghost of Annabelle Higgins, but also by a demon, A dark-skinned, horned being summoned by Annabelle is in search of a human soul and will do everything possible to obtain it..

Annabelle It is a worthy prequel to Warren File and although for many it is not as good as that one, you can see the care that has been put into all the scenes of the film to achieve a charged and at times tense atmosphere. It also has some really chilling and perfectly executed sequences, not only from the visual section but also from the sound, and anyone who has seen it will agree with me that scenes like the murder of the Higgins or the one in the basement of the building are really good. The criticism that the film has received was mostly negative, and I believe that the causative factor is the comparison with other films of the genre, including its own sequel, or the fact that many expect to see lots of murders and a diabolical and murderous doll in the style chucky and that is not the case. Here fear appears as an evil entity, a constant feeling of danger, of something that lurks all the time and that irritates your nerves even if nothing happens. It's that feeling of being sure that something bad is going to happen at some point and you don't know when, but you do know that it will happen. The public, unlike specialized critics, seems to have given this film a thumbs up, and as I have already mentioned before, it has become a box office success, which proves once again that in terms of tastes nothing is set in stone.

Some curious facts:

• La actriz protagonista de esta película se llama casualmente Annabelle.
• El director y uno de los productores le informaron a los reporteros que el set de filmación de la película estaba maldito y que habían ocurrido algunos sucesos paranormales allí.
• El director de esta cinta es el cinematógrafo de Child’s Play 3 (Chucky 3) y la mayoría de las películas de James Wan, incuyendo Insidious e Insidious Chapter 2.
• En la película se nos muestra a Annabelle como gran una muñeca de porcelana, pero la verdadera Annabelle es una muñeca grande de Raggedy Ann, un personaje de una serie de libros infantiles, que es de trapo y con hilos rojos como cabello, y actualmente se encuentra en el museo de los Warren, dentro de una urna de cristal.