Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson star in Annabelle Comes Home.Courtesy of Warner Bros.
- Annabelle Comes Home
- Directed by Gary Dauberman
- Written by Gary Dauberman and James Wan
- Starring Mckenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga
- Classification 14A
- 106 minutes
Today’s overprotective parents will recoil in horror at the 70s suburban frights of Annabelle Comes Home, a satisfying supernatural thriller about kids left alone, an evil doll gone wild and scary shag-and-linoleum interior design choices.
The film is the third instalment in the Annabelle series and the seventh movie within the Conjuring Universe, loosely built on the real-life cases of ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren. As the film’s title says, Ed and Lorraine bring Annabelle, a clearly malevolent doll, home. They lock it up in a glass cabinet in a room full of paranormal artifacts, demon-summoning what-nots and a box clearly marked “hell hound.” Then they take off, leaving their daughter in the hands of a babysitter and her snoopy friend. Shoot, why not just drive your daughter to Amityville and drop her off at the graveyard?
What follows is excellent, uncomplicated and well-wrought house-of-horrors fun, complete with a message about self-blame and the real things that haunt us. Gary Dauberman is a first-time director, but don’t worry, Mom and Dad, your kids (and everyone else) are in good hands with him.
Annabelle Comes Home opens June 26.
Brad Wheeler