What we mostly get in Annabelle is what we've gotten from so many other horror films: creaking floors, funky white-robed figures, home appliances that go off on their own, mysterious writing that shows up in mysterious places.
For much of its running time, Annabelle is so bereft of ideas for scare tactics that when the doll isn't involved, it's hard to differentiate it from any other domestic horror movie that's ever come out.
Annabelle, at its heart, feels like it should be part of an anthology collection, clocking in at twenty or thirty minutes, instead of at feature length.
Watching Annabelle is like watching a movie you've seen a dozen times before, just with different actors and slight variations on the same scare tactics.
In the hands of a better creative team, an all-Annabelle film might have been a grand slam. Here it's a bloop single, narrowly avoiding a tag out on the basepaths.
We could chat all day about how "Annabelle" lifted (even stole) bits from better films. But, that would take away from the net effect of this evil doll movie. "Annabelle" is a very good horror film, originality be damned.
