5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Watch “Annabelle Comes Home”

Have you ever watched a movie and cringed at the audacity of the crash grab? Just a complete grift that rips off its own material, but somehow worse, because it was clear no one expected the movie to be anything but trilogy fodder? That’s Annabelle Comes Home.

Reason 1: Boring!

To explain just how boring and not-scary this movie was, I was not only scrolling on my phone, I ended up downloading one of those spam games that keep popping up on every other Instagram post. I then played a few rounds of said game until it locked the rest of the game behind those shitty pay barriers they use to milk you for $4.99 a day. And somehow, thematically, that event made more sense than what was actually in the movie.

Reason 2: Three girls and Balls

The movie stars the ever-luminous McKenna Grace as the second time the Warren’s daughter was recast (the third being in The Conjuring: Last Rites), but also two teenage girls. Between all of them, the most memorable character was the grocery bagging guy whose nickname was “Balls”. There’s also a stoned pizza dude who imparted a memory on my brain.

Reason 3: Poor Imitations

In The Conjuring 2, there’s a very great horror scene where the scary nun circles the room, appearing outside windows, behind curtains as a silhouette, as shadows, and then finally bursts out through a painting. There’s a similar shot in the first Insidious film, where a demon guy paces outside a window before teleporting inside the room for his final pace. There’s a scene like that in Annabelle, but instead, the scary bride simply walks into a doorframe, then lunges with a knife. Then the shot cuts away, because they know we know that they’re not killing a little girl in that scene.

Good job copying something but also doing it wrong, idiots.

Reason 4: Wolfman

There’s a wolf made of smoke that’s stopped by a chicken coop.

Reason 5: Unfulfilled Potential

The idea for this movie was that the Annabelle doll can attract spirits to her and then control them. Given that one of the idiot teenagers touches a bunch of haunted items in a room that literally says, “don’t touch the shit in here” while she’s looking to talk to her dead dad, you’d expect a bunch of ghosts converging. And we get some of that. There’s a ferryman, the wolf, the bride, and even two benevolent spirits. And they’re all defeated by children.

C’mon, dude. I’d have been ok with a Warren Ex Machina if they’d at least killed the girl who wanted to talk to dead people by breaking into the ghost room.

Reason -1: McKenna Grace is a Saving Grace

I will note that both McKenna Grace was a standout in this film, as she is in everything she’s in (skip to “A Journey”). She was cast as the innocent-yet-brave type who gets scared, but will still try to do the right thing. Unfortunately, Judy Warren can’t save Annabelle Comes Home, and we can all safely rate the film

BAD

I watched Annabelle Comes Home on HBO.

Wondering how my rating system works? Let me explain!