Home Is Where the Haunting Is

We haven't had a Shortening yet without evil dolls, and damned if we're going to start now!

Dedicated readers might be curious as to why I've never before used this space to tackle this horror decade's most prominent porcelain villain. Part of may stem from the fact that Annabelle, you know, doesn't actually DO anything. 

It's kind of beautiful, and if you really want to dive deeper into just how grand a dame this toy is, I urge you to read Final Girl blogger Stacie Ponder's brilliant essay on the subject. 

Now obviously, I don't mind a doll that does nothing. Observe my complete adoration with Cathy's Curse and you'll understand that sometimes, a creepy pile of fabric with a face is enough in itself without Chucky-esque one-liners. And the truth is, I've genuinely enjoyed the first two Annabelle movies. So why not continue the journey?

Quick Plot: Beginning just a few minutes following the events of the first Annabelle, Lorraine and Ed Warren have successfully transported the titular doll to their basement of horrors. Locked behind blessed church glass, she sits back and waits.

The Warrens are called out of town to do some ghost hunting, leaving their daughter Judy (last year's Shortening queen, The Bad Seed/The Haunting of Hill House's Mckenna Grace) in the care of kind teenage babysitter Mary Ellen (Jumanji's delightful Madison Iseman). While Mary Ellen was hoping to play some board games and bake a birthday cake for the lonely Judy, her wilder best friend Daniela shows up with other plans. 

And roller skates.

I can't imagine what world we live in where a ten-year-old girl can put on shoes with wheels for the first time in her LIFE and only manage to have one fall around the block. But perhaps the PTSD from the one time I attempted to roller boogie in the 4th grade just still burns.

Anyway, Daniela is eager to explore the Warrens' collection in the hopes of finding some kind of communication line to her recently deceased father. Naturally, she ends up freeing our favorite blond in the process, along with a whole batch of demons, ghosts, and for good measure, CGI werewolves.

Making his directorial debut, Gary Dauberman (who penned all three installments) creates a very stable PG-13 haunted house feel that should come across as a far bigger compliment than it might sounds. While The Conjuring universe has had its highs and lows, the Annabelle series has, for me, been consistently enjoyable. 

Even if the doll doesn't do sh$t.

With Annabelle Comes Home (or Annabelle: Homecoming, as I've been calling it for last year), Dauberman gives us what I affectionally call slumber party horror. Stakes are raised and the cast sells the terror, but at a certain point, the comfort level of (SPOILER ALERT) knowing that your extremely likable, extremely young cast is going to be okay. 

There's a place for hard, cruel horror, and another for spooky jump scares with heart. When done well, that latter spot is a darn good time.

High Points

There was a point early on in Annabelle Comes Home where I worried we'd be following a very dumb and slightly cruel teenager, but one of the nicest things about this film is that its characters are generally nice. It's amazing how far that goes for a film

Low Points

I know there are many real-life people who have issues with the actual Warrens, but fictionally, it's hard to accept that a couple who've spent their lives dealing with supernatural horrors would be so casual as to trust a teenager and a mere deadbolt to supervise their daughter and a house full of evil objects

If you can't nail the design (particularly a CGI one) of a werewolf, think very, very hard about whether it's worth including one in your film

Lessons Learned

The law of Checkhov's inhaler never fails

There's no such thing as enticing pizza in the horror genre

The art of wooing involves rock 'n roll

Rent/Bury/Buy

Annabelle Comes Home isn't groundbreaking, but it's a solid romp that I found incredibly satisfying. As a franchise, it's taken an interesting journey in focusing on adults, children, and now teenagers. I'll be curious to see where it goes next. 

Farther Into the Further

As I mentioned a few months back in my review of The Conjuring, I will always root for James Wan. 

Even if he continues to deny me gratuitous shots of Patrick Wilson’s rear. 

Quick Plot: When we last left the Lamberts, astral projectionist Dalton was safely returned to the realm of the living, but dad Josh might have brought back something ominous and aimed it squarely at Lin Shaye's psychic investigator Elise. Before picking up at that fateful night, Chapter 2 takes us back to 1986 when an adolescent Josh was first learning how to forget his supernatural talents.

Let's just get this out of the way: the scariest thing about the occasionally scary, occasionally silly sequel is in how it shares something in common with A League of Their Own.

THAT IS NOT GEENA DAVIS IN OLD LADY MAKEUP

THAT IS NOT LIN SHAYE IN YOUNG LADY MAKEUP

SO WHY DO THEY SOUND SO MUCH LIKE THEIR ORIGINAL ACTRESSES?

Look, I understand that both Lin Shaye and Geena Davis have very distinctive voices. Asking a young (or old) lookalike to capture that timber ain't easy, so dubbing over replacement actress's voice makes sense. 

It's just also really freaky.

Anyway, the flashback just reminds us that Josh Lambert has some astral talents, although the Josh Lambert we see now might actually be possessed by Parker Crane, a troubled serial killer who met young Josh when his doctor mom (Barbara Hershey in the present, House of the Devil's Jocelin Donahue thankfully not dubbed by Barbara Hershey in flashback form) took him to the hospital where Crane committed suicide. Or maybe it's Crane's even more deranged mother, the kind of Sleepaway Camp-esque harpie who never met a makeup cake she didn't love.

Still with me?

With the full Insidious team returning, Chapter 2 is a genuine continuation of the story first begun in 2010. That installment proved quite fruitful at the box office making it something of a no-brainer to slap on a sequel. Thankfully, Wan and screenwriter/actor Leigh Whannell put some effort in expanding the story, rather than, as so may horror followups are want to do, simply repeating the formula beat for beat.

I will never forgive you, Home Alone 2: Lost In Let’s Just Substitute Every Detail People Loved About Our FIrst Film With Something Similar And Waste The Talents of Tim Curry.

Yes, we still have Kali’s baby monitor providing ambient scares, old houses opening creaking doors without help, and controversial comic relief in the form of Whannell and Angus Sampson’s ghostbusting team. The trademarks continue, but the story has a new direction to take in going both forward and back. 

Does it work? That question will probably most depend upon where you fell on Insidious. For me, I found it refreshing in how Wan managed to avoid so many genre cliches (i.e., characters turning on lights when entering dark rooms and moving out of houses that are clearly haunted) and genuinely unnerving in its first hour of unique jump scares. Its surreal ending didn’t work for me, but I could still appreciate the overall product as solid entertainment.

Chapter 2 has the same tone as its predecessor but works quite hard to develop the ghosts that have been hunting the Lambert males with typical Wan creepy clues. Eerie dolls show up in abandoned hospitals, a grand piano mysteriously plays a haunting tune, and a bitter Bette Davis channeling ghost screeches at anyone with the nerve to investigate her otherworldly crimes. This all reveals something of a Psycho-inspired serial killer backstory that feels a little too complicated for the fairly simple ghost story it’s supporting.

Once it establishes its premise, the film cuts between Renai (the very worried Rose Byrne)’s attempts to protect her children, Josh’s creepy is-he-or-isn’t-he-possessed mystery, Barbara Hershey & the ghosthunters (band name pending) investigating the past, and flashbacks (or maybe ‘furtherbacks’) to Josh’s initial meetings with Parker and his mommy dearest. It’s a lot, and as a result, the Parker stuff doesn’t have enough time to register much. Considering it’s ultimately the device meant to fuel the scare-factor of the end, it’s a minor shame. 

High Points

Joseph Bishara, who also did the music for Insidious and The Conjuring, really makes his score count. The screaming violins are used in a unique and extremely eerie way that manages to feel fresh despite being, you know, the jump scare accompaniment to a ghost story

Low Points

Aforementioned lack of focus in the Parker Crane backstory

Aforementioned lack of Patrick Wilson’s hiney

Lessons Learned

Abandoned hospitals keep impeccable hard copies of their records

Likewise, baby dolls made in the '80s have remarkable power supplies

The living version of someone is always better

Rhode Island Reds are the manliest of dollhouses

Rent/Bury/Buy

Insidious: Chapter 2 is a true continuation of the first film's story, which is somewhat refreshing in comparison to other sequels that simply repeat their predecessors' formulas without exploring anything new. That being said, it doesn't feel quite as sharp or disciplined as The Conjuring, though some of the scares might still register the desired effect if watched in a dark and quiet room. Fans of the first film might find some enjoyment in this installment, but it’s ultimately fairly unnecessary and unremarkable. 

Conjure Me Some Shortening

James Wan is a true and deserved success story.

Starting out with a low budget, big idea'd little film called Saw that changed (for better and a lot worse) the very nature of the theatrical horror genre, this is a director with has only improved with each foray into the genre. While he leaves us lowly horror fans behind to carry on the rather fertile (though now rather uncertain) legacy of The Fast & the Furious (or Fast/Furious or Fasurious or whatever the new not-numbered sequels will be called), let us hope he makes the occasional visit back to us.

You know...because the guy clearly has a thing for creepy dolls.

Quick Plot: We start with a fun little prologue of sorts that qualifies The Conjuring for The Shortening. In the early '70s, a pair of roommates report their experiences with a possibly haunted, probably evil, and most certainly ugly doll named Annabelle to Ed and Lorraine Warren (the impossibly handsome Patrick Wilson and the impossibly awesome Vera Farmiga). The Warrens are the country's most esteemed pair of psychic investigators and deal with Annabelle as you do: lock it in a glass case inside your Friday the 13th: The Series-esque basement of haunted chotchkes.

Moving on to our main narrative we meet the Perrons, a pleasant family of seven moving to a secluded country estate in Rhode Island. Just a few nights in the mysteriously low-priced real estate gives way to the usual trappings of any haunted house:

-Every clock inside stops at the same time each night

-Dog Sadie refuses to enter, only to find the backyard even less safe

-Dad (Ron Livingston) discovers a hidden basement loaded with antiques

-The temperature remains freezing despite the furnace being in working order

-Middle child's sleepwalking keeps leading to an antique wardrobe that seems to house something else

- Mom Carolyn (Lili Taylor, taking a better stab at being in a ghost film titled in the noun form of a verb in the present perfect tense) wakes up with unexplained bruises all over her iron deficient body

-The youngest daughter discovers a disheveled music box that reveals an imaginary friend

-There's a ghost and it attacks everyone

Forgive the Foxworthy routine, but if your home is never above 20ºF, your daughters report invisible things grabbing their legs in the middle of the night, and your dog has all but drawn a police sketch of an angry Casper with its paws, you just might be in a haunted house.

Thankfully, Carolyn is able to reach the Warrens for an investigation, something that comes loaded with its own history as the clairvoyant Lorraine is still recovering from a horrific exorcism gone wrong.

By now, you're probably thinking that all of this sounds very familiar. Patrick Wilson already trespassed through The Further in Insidious, Lili Taylor saw her share of The Haunting, and just about every detail thus far has a faint smell of a Long Island home in Nassau County. 

Except this one is better.

There is little new in The Conjuring, and that's almost the point. The opening credits blatantly style themselves on those of any '70s ghost film, while The Changeling's bouncing ball makes an adorable cameo. There are traces of The Exorcist and Poltergeist at play, but here's the thing: The Conjuring knows how to position them.

Ever since he stretched a low budget and short filming time for Saw, James Wan has been steadily growing as a filmmaker. I'm in the minority that appreciated Dead Silence both as a stylish throwback and clear attempt to toy with certain horror elements. True, maybe I just like Wan because he and I share a fascination with puppets and their like, but in watching his development from Saw to Dead Silence to the strong-til-its-last-act Insidious, you can see a filmmaker with a love and understanding of the horror genre finding his own way through it. Sure, Insidious and The Conjuring call back all the tropes of haunted house movies--the kooky psychics, the children's games gone wrong--but think of what they do differently than so many others: when investigating a mystery, characters TURN ON THE LIGHTS. The first instinct? MOVE OUT. Like us, James Wan has clearly watched his share of ghost stories and translated what I assume to be his mental checklist into an effective chill.

It helps that Wan is working with a seasoned cast that clearly cares. Farmiga has been one of my favorite actresses for years, and not JUST because she goes head to head with Isabelle Badass Fuhrman in Orphan. No one is phoning in a performance here, and the cast is aided by a clean and occasionally, quite funny script from Chad and Carey Hayes. Wan carefully builds his characters and the situation with deliberate care, making everything onscreen hit harder when the chairs start flying.

High Points

In addition to all the aforementioned strengths--good cast, script, ambiance--I should point out something that Wan and his crew do incredibly well: architecture. As we followed a character investigating a strange sound, it dawned on me that I knew exactly which bedroom it was coming from and where said room was located in the house. Because the layout of the set was established so clearly (and innocently) early on in the film, I as a viewer was put in the same place as the characters, bringing me one step closer to the action and horror. It's something that can be overlooked so easily in the age of quick cuts, and yet watching The Conjuring made me realize just how much this kind of precision can help a film

Low Points

It's simply a matter of taste, but for me, as soon as the demonic forces go from eerie suggestion to concrete existence, the scares become a little less throat gulpy and more 'eh, at least it's not CGI'-y

Gentlemen, I apologize for my crassness, but it must be said: whenever Patrick Wilson appears in a film and does not show his rear, the ladies are sad

Lessons Learned

We could make all sorts of easy jokes about how the REAL horror of the Perrons is being a family filled with five daughters, but let's face it: if The Conjuring has taught us nothing else, it's that wallpaper of the 1970s was truly horrifying

Listen to your dog. ALWAYS listen to your dog

Ghosts smell like rancid meat or REALLY bad farts

Rent/Bury/Buy

Like The Purge, I was incredibly satisfied with 2013’s OTHER big profit, low budget studio horror film. The Conjuring isn’t perfect and won’t necessarily get the jumps out of all audience members, but this is the kind of well-made little ghost story ideal for an evening of lights-out, cats-on-lap viewing. Good stuff.

Shortening Cred: Though the real threat is a fully grown ghost, The Conjuring has a nice supporting turn by doll (and possible distant cousin to Seed of Chucky’s Glen) Annabelle.

BONUS! The Internet has informed me that little Lili Taylor stands at a mighty height of 5'2. Since she spends a fair amount of The Conjuring causing a ruckus, we'll use that as added proof that this film does indeed belong here this February.