Ed's Review Dot Com

New Line Cinema, Evergreen Media Group,

Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Alfre Woodard, Eric Ladin, Tony Amendola

In 2013’s The Conjuring we met Ed and Lorraine Warren who study the paranormal and assist in supernatural situations. In their home vault they had a series of objects that had a strong connection to evil and demons and the like. The pride of their collection was a very creepy doll named Annabelle. Well, we know we’re not done with Annabelle just yet, but this film is actually a prequel to The Conjuring where we learn the back story about where Annabelle came from and what horrible things she has done in the past. Basically, a gift to a young expectant woman by her husband. She’s a doll collector and Annabelle completes the set. But when the deranged daughter of their next door neighbor arrives back home with her fellow cult member boyfriend to kill everyone in sight and takes a liking to the doll, from that point on Annabelle has a life of her own. The evil follows them, and Annabelle is a doll that can’t seem to be destroyed.

This is a rather simple horror film, but well made, quite interesting, and with lots of horror and suspense. Though the doll with a spirit has been done by Chucky for years, and the parents trying to save their unborn child has been around before, it’s quite a good little story, and Annabelle, the doll, will surely give you the creeps. I don’t know what it is about possessed children’s toys, but this doll is really dreadful. I don’t think this is going to be a huge box office hit, but the timing is perfect, and I do believe it will do better than most people expect. I think it’s a fun little movie, and will give you some serious jolts both through the creepiness of it, and as well as through the sound effects. They are suspenseful scares mixed with the usual startling sound effect scares. This is set back in what looks like back in the 60’s and the music and technology is really spot on. It was a trip back in time as well. But the story is pretty tight, well written, and for the month of October, I would think it’s a nice evening to go out for an evening of frights in the theater for a change of pace. We went to an early showing on Saturday, and the theater was probably at least 75% full. There were lots of shrieks and screams from the crowd, and I think most everyone had a great time. If you are a horror fan, this is a pretty good one, and I enjoyed it a lot. This one I’m glad I went out to see on the big screen!

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog

Regency Enterprises, River Road Entertainment, Plan B Entertainment,

Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Paul Giamatti, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson, Brad Pitt, Alfre Woodard, Garret Dillahunt, Scoot McNairy, Adepero Oduye, Michael K. Williams, Chris Chalk, Taran Killam, Bill Camp

The true story of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who was a free black man living in New York State. Solomon was an accomplished musician and was tricked into a job where he was captured and sold as a slave. He was subjected to both incredible kindness and extreme cruelty as were those around him before he meets a Canadian abolitionist, Bass (Brad Pitt) who changes his life forever.

The movie is based on the memoirs of Solomon Northup himself and is set in the pre-Civil War days. Events like that happened from time to time, and certainly no one can tolerate the depiction of the brutality of slavery. Not to make light of it, but since the slaves were valuable property, the extreme damage they did in this movie would surely depreciate the value of their property. I doubt that most slave owners would treat their “tools” like this. IF they did, they were really stupid. But at the same time, the times were horrible and treating human beings as property is disgusting. Still, I feel the filmmakers went out of their way to lay a guilt trip on us, and that is the most uncomfortable thing about watching this film. It’s hard not to feel pretty bad about yourself while watching this. It’s a mind numbing story, and there’s now way to come out of this unscathed. Regardless of whether or not it’s historically accurate in this case, It’s still a powerful message. I felt somewhat torn, all in all, and so I don’t really know how to rate this one. It’s really well done, and yet, I was torn as to whether I really was impressed that much. I chose 4 stars for the really good acting and for the screen play. It is a real depiction of life in the South pre-Civil War. But I was not completely blown away with the story. I can’t really put my finger on it. It just left me unsettled, which is what I guess it was supposed to do.

EdG – EdsReview Dot Com – A Movie Review Blog