‘Annabelle Comes Home’ Blows The Conjuring Universe Wide Open

The Conjuring-verse is in full swing. Not only has the original spookfest spawned The Conjuring 2 (and the upcoming The Conjuring 3), but it has inspired a whole slew of spinoffs like The Nun and The Curse of La Llorona. The original The Conjuring spin-off, Annabelle, which featured the creepy scene-stealing doll from the first movie, has even turned into a franchise of its own with the origin story Annabelle Creation and, finally, the newest Conjuring-verse offering: Annabelle Comes Home.

Taking place in the mid-seventies, Annabelle Comes Home opens with the same scene that opened The Conjuring, with paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga reprising their roles, of course) taking the demonic doll from its hapless owners to their basement museum/cursed object storage room for safe keeping, stashing it in a blessed protective case complete with an ominous “POSITIVELY DO NOT OPEN” sign.

The Warrens go out for the night and leave their daughter, Judy (Mckenna Grace, who has played the young versions of both Tonya Harding in I, Tonya and Carol Danvers in Captain Marvel), in the capable hands of their babysitter, Mary Ellen (Goosebumps 2: Haunted Halloween’s Madison Iseman). Curious about the Warren’s home, Mary Ellen’s friend, Daniela (Katie Sarife from “Youth & Consequences”) drops by and sneaks into the forbidden room of cursed objects, unwittingly releasing all of the demons and spirits that have been safely trapped in there in the process.

With producer James Wan keeping it all in his The Conjuring family, Annabelle Comes Home was written and directed by Gary Dauberman, who also wrote the screenplays for the other Annabelle movies and The Nun (as well as the recent IT remake). Although Annabelle the doll is at the center of all of the mischief, Annabelle Comes Home feels like more of a The Conjuring movie than an Annabelle one, and not just because the Warrens make an appearance. None of the main characters are as well crafted or as likeable as the Warrens themselves, but the kids are much more developed than any of the heroes were in the first two Annabelle movies, so there’s more emotional investment on the part of the audience.

There’s a Goosebumps-esque vibe to Annabelle Comes Home once the different spirits of the forbidden room are released and each decides to haunt a different protagonist. Although the demons in Annabelle Comes Home are far more frightening than the lawn gnomes and gummi bears of the Goosebumps movies, the unleashing has a similar spirit, and in the case of Mary Ellen’s unwitting little boyfriend, Bob (Michael Cimino from No Child Left Behind), it’s almost comical. Bob’s function in the movie seems to be to bring a little human heart to the proceedings – he even charmingly fumbles his way through a version of Bread’s “Everything I Own” that seems to be a bumbling homage to Ed’s rendition of “Can’t Help Falling in Love With You” in The Conjuring 2 – but what he really does best is provide a target for the coolest demon in the movie – a werewolf hellhound beast.

In case you couldn’t tell from all of this, there’s a lot going on in Annabelle Goes Home. And it does get jumbled up at times, but even when chaos reigns, the movie is howlingly fun. Sure, at times the viewer just hopes and prays that everything will come together logically in the end, and everything kind of does to an extent, but since when has logic prevailed in horror movies, especially ones in which demons and ghosts are involved?

By now, fans know what to expect from The Conjuring movies, and that’s pretty much what Annabelle Comes Home delivers. There are plenty of scares, a whole lot of tension, and just the right amount of heart. And it opens the universe up to even more spinoffs with demonic characters like a bloody bride, a possessed samurai, and the aforementioned demon hellhound. While Annabelle Comes Home doesn’t really add anything to the whole Annabelle mythology, it does help to build the bigger world. And frankly, the doll herself is freakier without knowing all of the answers. And the new Warren demons are just itching to tell their stories in future movies.