I just watched ANNABELLE COMES HOME (2019), my third movie of the CONJURING series, and the third one starring Annabelle, a strange doll hosting a demon. Like its prequels, ANNABELLE (2014) and ANNABELLE: CREATION (2017), this is an effectively creepy screenplay with plenty of startle moments, even more than in the first one. The series is (loosely, I’m sure) based on actual events, with a certain couple, Ed and Lorraine Warren, who were demonologists in the 1960s and ‘70s often showing up in many of these movies, including this one. I will watch the rest of the eight existing installments in the franchise.
I didn’t used to watch much horror like I seem more open to doing these days. These ANNABELLE movies are so over the top that they’re quite entertaining. As creepy doll movies go, I still actually like M3GAN (2023) better than these ANNABELLE ones. The former is funny in places while being more relationally involving and visceral. And with the fast evolution of AI, something like the creation of a deadly AI powered doll seems more eerily possible to occur on a grander scale.
The Practical, Fanciful Pagan 