REVIEW: Annabelle: Creation [2017]

“Dear diary. Today I came home.” You can’t blame audiences for being skeptical about a prequel to a prequel to James Wan‘s acclaimed The Conjuring when the first proved a huge step down in quality. There was no way Annabelle would equal the level of contemporary horror classic that Wan’s look into the paranormal via Ed and Lorraine Warren possessed, but the hope was that it would come close. Not only did it create a whole new mythology around the titular doll that flittered with rendering everything we had learned…

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REVIEW: Annabelle [2014]

“Crazy people do crazy things, ma’am” The story of Annabelle—a possessed Raggedy Ann doll from the 1970s—is a part of Lorraine and Ed Warren’s lore as experts in the occult. It along with the Amityville house are what the couple are most known for “combating” and thus easy fodder to provide audiences an entry point into understanding what these demonologists do. That’s why James Wan and company used them as prologues to his The Conjuring series, the former with Part 1 and the latter Part 2. Whereas Amityville already came…

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Posterized Propaganda October 2014: ‘Gone Girl,’ ‘Nightcrawler,’ ‘Whiplash,’ and More

“Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover” is a proverb whose simple existence proves the fact impressionable souls will do so without fail. This monthly column focuses on the film industry’s willingness to capitalize on this truth, releasing one-sheets to serve as not representations of what audiences are to expect, but as propaganda to fill seats. Oftentimes they fail miserably. Say goodbye to summer. Tent pole season is over and the critical darlings have begun to pop up on the Fandango queue. October is still a weird month, however, since…

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