A lot of filmmakers get their start playing with dolls. Like clay figurines and puppets, dolls can be cheaply animated, and if they complain about the workload, they generally do it behind the director’s back.
One such director is John R. Leonetti, a long-time cinematographer whose first gig was on the killer-doll sequel “Child’s Play 3.” He was also the cameraman for “The Conjuring,” the 2013 hit directed by doll aficionado James Wan (“Saw”). Leonetti now steps into the director’s chair for “Annabelle,” which is being promoted as a prequel/spinoff to “The Conjuring” because it’s built around a diabolical doll that had a cameo in that film.
“The Conjuring” was hailed as a retro horror flick. It relied on creaking floorboards and peekaboo poltergeists instead of pricey special effects. Similarly, “Annabelle” is set in the early ’70s, priming us for an old-school experience. Unfortunately, that school seems to be the Mail Order Film Academy, from which everyone involved seems to have dropped out.
The year is 1970 in Southern California, where the black-and-white TV in the Form house is filled with news about the Manson cult. Mia (Annabelle Wallis, no relation to the namesake doll and even less expressive) awaits the birth of her first child while husband John (soap-opera-trained Ward Horton) finishes med school. For no earthly reason, John gifts Mia with the most hideous porcelain doll imaginable, to complete her collection.
Soon the kindly couple next door are murdered by their crazed hippie daughter Annabelle. She then races into the Form’s house and slits her own throat while clutching the doll. Naturally, the doll evolves into a silent-but-spooky nuisance, forcing Jim to throw it in the trash while the couple move to an apartment in Pasadena.
But the doll must have a bus pass, because it follows the family across town and (preposterously) is allowed to stay and make mischief while Mia seeks advice from a priest (Tony Amendola) and the owner of an occult bookstore (Alfre Woodard).
With a pregnant protagonist called Mia (as in Farrow), an apartment-dwelling demon goat and references to the murdered Sharon Tate, “Annabelle” is so lazily coat-tailing on Roman Polanski, they should have called it “Rosemary’s Barbie.”