Jason Crews is the owner and editor of INFRARED MAGAZINE and a Dallas–Fort Worth-based music journalist and concert photographer. Through INFRARED MAGAZINE and JASON CREWS PHOTOGRAPHY, he covers rock, metal, country, and live music with a focus on album reviews, artist features, concert coverage, and photography. His work is driven by a genuine passion for music and helping artists connect with new audiences through honest writing, strong visuals, and meaningful storytelling.
ANNABELLE COMES HOME
Director: Gary Dauberman
Writers: James Wan (Story), Gary Dauberman (Screenplay)
Stars: Vera Farmiga, Natalia Safran, Patrick Wilson, Elena Askin, Katie Sarife, Mckenna Grace, Samara Lee, Madison Iseman, and Michael Cimino
Rating: 8 / 10 Stars
REVIEW Who says horror was dead in 2019?
From where I’m sitting, 2019 was one hell of a year for the genre. We had the excellent Crawl. We had a surprisingly good remake with Child’s Play. We had the criminally underrated The Hole in the Ground. Even the horror movies that wanted to have some fun delivered, whether it was Ready or Not or Happy Death Day 2U. There are plenty more I could add to that list.
Then there is the Conjuring Universe.
For a franchise that could easily have started running on fumes by this point, 2019 proved there was still plenty of life left in it. More importantly, Annabelle Comes Home is easily the best Annabelle movie so far.
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One of the biggest reasons this movie works for me is Gary Dauberman. After writing within this universe, Dauberman steps behind the camera for his feature directorial debut and immediately gives the material a different personality.
The darkness is still here. The mythology is still here. The jump scares are definitely still here.
But this movie is also willing to have a sense of humor without turning Annabelle into a joke.
That balance matters.
You can feel that this was made by somebody who understands what fans enjoy about these movies but does not want to simply remake what came before. Dauberman allows the characters to breathe, lets some comedy into the room and then uses that comfort against the audience when it is time to scare them.
The setup is simple enough.
Ed and Lorraine Warren bring Annabelle back to their home after another encounter makes it painfully clear how dangerous the doll has become. Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga do not need much time to remind us why the Warrens became the heart of this universe in the first place.
Their presence immediately gives the opening weight, but Annabelle Comes Home understands that this particular story belongs somewhere else.
Once Annabelle is locked inside the artifact room and placed behind that familiar glass, the movie shifts its attention to Judy Warren and her babysitter Mary Ellen. Daniela eventually enters the picture, curiosity gets the better of everyone and somebody starts messing with things that absolutely should have been left alone.
Anybody familiar with the Conjuring Universe already knows how badly that decision is going to end.
That knowledge actually becomes part of the tension.
We know this room is filled with objects connected to things nobody should want released. We know Annabelle is not simply decoration sitting behind glass. The movie knows that we know, and it has a lot of fun making us wait for everything to go wrong.
And it goes very wrong.
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What surprised me most is how well the humor works.
Comedy can absolutely destroy horror when filmmakers use it as an escape hatch every time a scene becomes uncomfortable. Annabelle Comes Home avoids that problem more often than not.
The lighter moments make these characters feel more human, which ultimately gives the horror something worth threatening.
I found myself actually caring about Judy, Mary Ellen and Daniela instead of simply sitting around waiting for the next supernatural set piece.
That emotional connection is something this movie handles better than I expected.
The Conjuring Universe has always been at its best when the paranormal activity is attached to people we care about. The original The Conjuring understood that. Annabelle Comes Home understands it too.
There are also smart nods back to the earlier films without making the entire experience feel like franchise homework.
Most importantly, though, this movie wants to scare people.
There are scenes built around atmosphere and anticipation, but eventually the franchise pulls out its favorite weapon again:
The jump scare.
Normally, this is where I start having problems.
The Conjuring Universe has relied on jump scares so heavily over the years that you can sometimes feel one coming before the characters do. Annabelle Comes Home does not suddenly solve that problem, especially once the final act begins stacking scares on top of scares.
The difference is that a lot of them actually work here.
Maybe it is because the movie spends more time making us care about the characters first. Maybe it is Dauberman’s timing. Maybe it is simply because the artifact-room concept gives the movie so many different ways to attack these people.
Whatever the reason, the scares landed for me.
I’m not going to complain when a horror movie gets the exact reaction it came looking for.
If you want to revisit it for yourself, Annabelle Comes Home is available through Amazon Prime Video.
My biggest problems arrive late in the film.
The final act begins pushing the jump scares hard enough that some of the atmosphere established earlier starts to disappear. The ending also reaches for an emotional payoff that feels more melodramatic than earned.
After spending so much of the movie finding a good balance between darkness, humor and genuine emotion, those final sequences feel like they are trying a little too hard to tell us how we should feel.
That keeps Annabelle Comes Home from reaching the level of the best films in the larger Conjuring Universe.
But it does not erase everything that came before it.
I went into Annabelle Comes Home hoping this franchise still had somewhere interesting to go.
I came out believing that it absolutely does.
This is easily the strongest Annabelle movie for me, and it is another reason 2019 deserves more credit as a damn good year for horror.
I still put Crawl above it. I also think Annabelle Comes Home edges out the Child’s Play remake.
That is pretty good company.
The final act has problems. The ending does not completely land. The franchise still needs to understand that a jump scare is a tool and not the entire toolbox.
But the characters work.
The humor works.
More importantly, the horror works.
And when Annabelle Comes Home is firing on all cylinders, it delivers exactly the kind of haunted-house nightmare this franchise should be giving us.
I want more from this universe.
I want more from Dauberman behind the camera.
And yes, I absolutely want more Annabelle.
Annabelle Comes Home Official Trailer
