Time to go back to the Warren home.

You know it dawns on me that it’s been nearly two and a half years since I watched Conjuring 1 and 2 to try to catch up, meaning I’ve seen four films from the series in a row now not actually featuring The Warrens. Annabelle Comes Home remedies that somewhat, being centered around Judy Warren, the daughter and also somewhat psychic child of the family. Still it’s nice to have a movie not set too far into the past.

Annabelle Comes Home was directed by Gary Dauberman who did the prior Annabelle movies. As of right now it’s the final movie in the Annabelle trilogy, because everything needs to be a trilogy, and I honestly hope the last Annabelle-centric movie. It certainly seems to be. Peter Safran has said they’ll make movies as long as they have original stories to tell and…well, I’d say they’re keeping it up so far. Say what you want about the spoops, but the movies have been in very different locales with very different characters. If it is the last, they did bring everything full circle.

The movie picks up after Ed and Lorraine (God rest her soul) put the Annabelle doll behind its famous glass case. We learn that Annabelle is not actually possessed but is really a conduit for other spirits. Sort of a lightning rod, or an afterlife McDonald’s offering free fries outside a Planet Fitness. Naturally Ed and Lorraine skedaddle for the weekend so they can be unavailable and it’s up to Judy (Mckenna Grace) and her baby sitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) to hold down the fort.

Until Daniela (Katie Sarife) does what every stupid teen does in these films; lets out the evil. Can the trio contain the spoopies? Will Mary Ellen succumb to the wooing of pretty boy Bob (Michael Cimino)? Only time will tell. Roughly 1 hour and 47 minutes of time, to be exact. Samara Lee is back as Annabelle and creepy as ever, and I don’t think there’s a big coincidence that they cast someone whose name is literally Samara to play the creepy demon girl. Not that she doesn’t earn the role through sheer child creepiness.

Once again there aren’t really any bad actors in the group, everyone holds their own and gives a solid performance. I will admit at this point that some of the spoops are wearing thin. The whole bit of the shadow/reflection/window-view apparition walking in three walls around the person and then appearing in real life was spooky as hell the first time. But then they did it again, and again, and again. There are plenty of fake-outs for the audience, and of course the cinematography is still top notch.

Where prior movies played fast with the glowing demon eyes, Annabelle Comes Home does the same with shiny dead people eyes. The Ferryman plays a big role in the film as does his cohort of dead people with coins on their eyes. They do a lot with the coins. It’s creepy, suspenseful, and shows that there is still a lot of creativity left with the crew behind these films.

Annabelle Comes Home is definitely a conduit for something, and it is spinoffs. The Conjuring universe films often feel like really unsubtle marketing tools, because they are basically the horror equivalent of the MCU. We know that Conjuring 2 was partly used to field test interest in The Nun and The Crooked Man, Conjuring of course testing interest in an Annabelle spinoff. Annabelle Comes Home enables virtually every item in the room for some small time, like a big platter of wedding cake samples. Just a taste to see which ones work best.

Nothing’s been confirmed in the last four years so I assume not a whole lot came out of that focus testing. I’d be angrier if they made a Ferryman spinoff after cancelling the Crooked Man movie. I was really looking forward to that. The movies are still wildly popular, for now. It’s hard to believe The Nun cost a quarter as much as Jack and Jill, although granted The Nun wasn’t a money laundering scheme.

Only two more films to catch up on the series with no new movie in sight. I think I can do this.

Rating: B+