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Commander (Hellfire #3)
10.0
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When you meet the one demon with more trust issues than you, what better thing to do than fall in...
Paranormal Romance
Trancing the Tiger (Chinese Zodiac Romance, #1)
10.0
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He's a Tiger. She's a Rabbit. She'll entrance him. He'll devour her. After the Red Death...
Fantasy Romance Chinese Mythology
Gareth von Kallenbach (971 KP) rated Annabelle (2014) in Movies
Aug 6, 2019
Annabelle is the newest demon-based spooky fright film produced by James Wan (producer Saw II-IV & director Insidious 1&2). The trailers would have you believe that it is a prequel to the Conjuring. Well I suppose it is, although a very loose prequel.
Annabelle, the possessed doll, is mentioned a few times in “The Conjuring,” but it doesn’t contain any of the cast from the original . The film takes place in the 1970s and focuses on a married couple who have just moved in to a new house and the wife, Mia (Annabelle Wallis) is pregnant. Her husband (played extremely woodenly by actor Ward Horton) buys her a long sought after custom doll named Annabelle. Shortly after, the couple is attacked by their neighbors who we find are satanic cult members. Mia is stabbed in her belly (threatening the life of her child); the female Satanist neighbor dies clutching the Annabelle doll, her blood dripping and seemingly sucked into the eye socket of the doll, ushering in the demonic reign of Annabelle.
You’d assume that this is a standard “killer doll” horror flick, you’d also be a bit misled, and that’s a good thing in my opinion. This isn’t Chucky. You won’t see Annabelle speaking or running around the house brandishing a knife. That isn’t to say that the movie doesn’t have its share of genre tropes, it has plenty of those.
As so many other possession/haunting movies involving a couple, for the most part the lonely wife is preyed upon while the husband is away at work. Throughout the film the writers find multiple ways of keeping Mia at home alone with the demon. John is called away on a business trip on one of the more traumatic encounters Mia has with Annabelle, resulting in Mia being placed on bed rest, giving her a reason to stay at home in the demons clutches. Later John is placed on the night shift, once again placing him out of the way so the demon can terrorize Mia at night where things are scary. It is inevitable that a scene takes place where her husband doesn’t believe her and thinks she’s going crazy. I can think of so many films that go this same route. The prerequisite priest comes along to help the family figure out their demonic happenings and oh yes, let’s not forget the sagely African American that needs to help Mia find her way and lead her both in knowledge of the demon and its demise. The story manages to throw in some mysterious children to once scene just to make sure that the trope is checked off the list. The remainder of the movie after the introductory attack by the satanic neighbors has Mia and later her child being threatened by the demon possessing Annabelle, the search for what it is, and what it wants and then its climax and disposal. Nothing new to this genre found here.
Annabelle does come with its share of scares (most of these can be seen in the previews), however the pacing is bad. I found myself bored out of my mind by the plot between the scares. So bored and disinterested that once the scary scenes occurred which seemed to be paced almost on a timer there wasn’t enough scare to raise the adrenaline needed to make it to the next fright. I will say that having a child endangered and threatened by the demonic spirit does bump up the tension and nerves and was a necessary inclusion to raise the stakes and pull out some reason to care about the victims by the audience.
Mia and John are so one-imensional that one would be hard-pressed to care about what happens to either of them. The demon effects are about as scary as a guy in a rubber suit lurking around a two-bit horror house, I mean pretty bad. I’ve seen a scarier demon on a TV episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” from 1988. Annabelle is good for a fright or two, and a reason to grab some popcorn and pig-out, but just be prepared to take a siesta three or four times in-between bouts of popcorn binge.
Annabelle, the possessed doll, is mentioned a few times in “The Conjuring,” but it doesn’t contain any of the cast from the original . The film takes place in the 1970s and focuses on a married couple who have just moved in to a new house and the wife, Mia (Annabelle Wallis) is pregnant. Her husband (played extremely woodenly by actor Ward Horton) buys her a long sought after custom doll named Annabelle. Shortly after, the couple is attacked by their neighbors who we find are satanic cult members. Mia is stabbed in her belly (threatening the life of her child); the female Satanist neighbor dies clutching the Annabelle doll, her blood dripping and seemingly sucked into the eye socket of the doll, ushering in the demonic reign of Annabelle.
You’d assume that this is a standard “killer doll” horror flick, you’d also be a bit misled, and that’s a good thing in my opinion. This isn’t Chucky. You won’t see Annabelle speaking or running around the house brandishing a knife. That isn’t to say that the movie doesn’t have its share of genre tropes, it has plenty of those.
As so many other possession/haunting movies involving a couple, for the most part the lonely wife is preyed upon while the husband is away at work. Throughout the film the writers find multiple ways of keeping Mia at home alone with the demon. John is called away on a business trip on one of the more traumatic encounters Mia has with Annabelle, resulting in Mia being placed on bed rest, giving her a reason to stay at home in the demons clutches. Later John is placed on the night shift, once again placing him out of the way so the demon can terrorize Mia at night where things are scary. It is inevitable that a scene takes place where her husband doesn’t believe her and thinks she’s going crazy. I can think of so many films that go this same route. The prerequisite priest comes along to help the family figure out their demonic happenings and oh yes, let’s not forget the sagely African American that needs to help Mia find her way and lead her both in knowledge of the demon and its demise. The story manages to throw in some mysterious children to once scene just to make sure that the trope is checked off the list. The remainder of the movie after the introductory attack by the satanic neighbors has Mia and later her child being threatened by the demon possessing Annabelle, the search for what it is, and what it wants and then its climax and disposal. Nothing new to this genre found here.
Annabelle does come with its share of scares (most of these can be seen in the previews), however the pacing is bad. I found myself bored out of my mind by the plot between the scares. So bored and disinterested that once the scary scenes occurred which seemed to be paced almost on a timer there wasn’t enough scare to raise the adrenaline needed to make it to the next fright. I will say that having a child endangered and threatened by the demonic spirit does bump up the tension and nerves and was a necessary inclusion to raise the stakes and pull out some reason to care about the victims by the audience.
Mia and John are so one-imensional that one would be hard-pressed to care about what happens to either of them. The demon effects are about as scary as a guy in a rubber suit lurking around a two-bit horror house, I mean pretty bad. I’ve seen a scarier demon on a TV episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” from 1988. Annabelle is good for a fright or two, and a reason to grab some popcorn and pig-out, but just be prepared to take a siesta three or four times in-between bouts of popcorn binge.
Lady Midnight
9.0
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The Shadowhunters of Los Angeles star in the first novel in Cassandra Clare's newest series, The...
Seven Terrors
Selvedin Avdic and Coral Petkovich
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After nine months of self-imposed isolation following his wife's departure, the hero of Seven...
LeftSideCut (3778 KP) rated Satanic Panic (2019) in Movies
Sep 20, 2020
Satanic Panic is a horror-comedy that depicts the world's rich elite as Satan worshiping cultists who would love nothing more than to bring about the end of days. Relatable then!
The "eat the rich" concept is a tried and tested method of giving a movie some hateful antagonists, and Satanic Panic does it well, as a working class pizza delivery girl stumbles upon said cult, and quickly finds herself fighting for her life as the cultists seek to use her virginity as a method to bring about Baphomet and blah blah blah, you've surely heard this one before.
My main gripe with this movie is precisely that - it offers nothing new to the table. That, and the fact that it's low budget prevents us from seeing any demonic creatures, which is a shame.
Honestly though, apart from these negatives, Satanic Panic is actually a lot of fun. It's got a good sense of humour, a likeable heroine in Hayley Griffith, some pretty nasty practical gore effects here and there, and a somewhat cheap but charming aesthetic.
The cast also includes Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O' Connell, and a few horror mainstays such as Jordan Ladd, Ruby Modine and Jeff Daniel Phillips.
You could do a lot worse, and Satanic Panic does just about enough to scramble above the depths of horror shittiness.
The "eat the rich" concept is a tried and tested method of giving a movie some hateful antagonists, and Satanic Panic does it well, as a working class pizza delivery girl stumbles upon said cult, and quickly finds herself fighting for her life as the cultists seek to use her virginity as a method to bring about Baphomet and blah blah blah, you've surely heard this one before.
My main gripe with this movie is precisely that - it offers nothing new to the table. That, and the fact that it's low budget prevents us from seeing any demonic creatures, which is a shame.
Honestly though, apart from these negatives, Satanic Panic is actually a lot of fun. It's got a good sense of humour, a likeable heroine in Hayley Griffith, some pretty nasty practical gore effects here and there, and a somewhat cheap but charming aesthetic.
The cast also includes Rebecca Romijn, Jerry O' Connell, and a few horror mainstays such as Jordan Ladd, Ruby Modine and Jeff Daniel Phillips.
You could do a lot worse, and Satanic Panic does just about enough to scramble above the depths of horror shittiness.
LoganCrews (2861 KP) rated Annabelle (2014) in Movies
Oct 14, 2020
Shockingly not terrible. Don't get it twisted, the first 45 minutes still represent the worst of what horror movies can be (sewing machines are not fucking scary no matter how much royalty-free sounding, overloud music cues and ugly CGI blood you put around them) but after that it immediately wakes up and becomes something sort of half-serviceable. Its assets still have to work in service of another one of these shallow husks of horror franchise spin-offs complete with bottom-of-the-barrel acting from its two leads, sloppy editing, amateur-hour dialogue, and zero reason for existing. But that being said, this is actually a more interesting take on motherhood persevering through demonic possession than 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘫𝘶𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘨 - its characters are somewhat better and it introduces some intriguing threads about how religion presents itself in people's personal problems. Granted it doesn't do too much with them buy hey, they're there. Plus that entire elevator/staircase segment (barring the idiotic final jump) is effective as hell and Alfre Woodard is terrific. Kind of fun for a while, but not only am I still wondering why this needed to happen... but if it did, why was it pushed out in such a state? Though hey, at least it went with the R-rating which this easily could have skipped out on.
Of Love and Other Demons
Book
Nobel Prize winner and author of One Hundred Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera,...