There are some good films in the Conjuring Universe ~ this however, isn't one of them. That could be the end of the review, though I will go into further details, beginning firstly with the good.

The film opens with Ed and Lorraine Warren, reprised by Wilson and Farmiga, who are as entertaining and likable as usual. They occupy less than 10% of this feature, their central purpose being to introduce how the doll came into their possession, after which it was locked in the glass vault we see in The Conjuring. They then leave the house for...reasons (this was either never explained or I dropped off - neither of which is a good sign), and their daughter, Judy (Mckenna Grace) is put under the care of friend and babysitter Mary-Ellen (Madison Iseman), whose bestie Daniela (Katie Sarife) accompanies her.

From that moment on, the girls are the central characters, each receiving equal screen time and having good development, growing as characters as the film comes to an end. Judy is the young, religious girl, whose peers at school have recognized that her family, for lack of a better phrase, fight ghosts, and predictably, she is made fun of, with other students blatantly terrified of her. At the same time, she is coming to terms with the gift she inherited from her mom, to interact with spirits. Daniela on the other hand, is the strong, rebellious girl, on the outside at least, who is dealing with a traumatic death in the family, which she feels responsible for. Finally, Mary-Ellen is the diligent young woman who lacks confidence and has asthma. Yeah, scratch what I said earlier - her character receives the least amount of depth.

As this is a horror movie, we have to talk about the scares, or, more aptly the jump scares. These are occasionally executed well, with a couple of nice surprises that do cause a jolt, and though the final confrontation is about as scary as an episode of Star Wars Rebels, it is still entertaining, with some of the dead from previous Annabelle films making an appearance during the narrative. (This is the part where I shift into talking about the negatives) For the most part however, the 'scares' are either predictable or just plain 'meh!', some of which have been recycled from previous entries (the doll that randomly moves around; the TV remote that goes missing; the girl who gets dragged out of bed...). Furthermore, the star of the show, Annabelle, has her screen time occasionally stolen by an assortment of other malevolent spirits that she conjures. The reason this spin-off was created is because of Annabelle's popularity; to have her share the stage with other ghouls, most of whom have no background, is an insult to her character. Not only this, the sense of sustained threat that should accompany a horror film like this is entirely absent, as I was never fully convinced of the 'danger' the characters were in.

Annabelle Comes Home clocks in at almost two hours, and unlike The Conjuring 2, which was longer, and well-paced, a lot of the time, this installment feels padded out, as sometimes it is, well...boring, with characters sitting around, talking. This does go into cringe-inducing territory like 'you have to woo her, man!'. Michael Cimino's character 'Bob' is another example of this, as the boy next door with a crush on Mary-Ellen, appearing to be comic-relief, and tonally changing the film even more.

Additionally, though Judy appears courageous, having a unique understanding of spirits, the other characters, despite seeing the warning signs and the ghosts wandering around, make some of the dumbest decisions known to man. One moment, Mary-Ellen is staring at a ghost as it stares back at her - I mean, what is she waiting for; run Forest, run! Speaking of, her character only has an asthma attack when the plot calls for it. If her asthma was as systemic as the script would want you to believe, initially indicating that any form of anxiety may cause a reaction, she would require her inhaler more frequently.

The film includes some good practical and computer-generated effects, though these don't add much to the horror elements, considering the contrived nature of the plot. I had just come off Annabelle Creation the night earlier, which had generated a far deeper sense of dread, with genuinely good scares, making Annabelle more menacing. Annabelle Comes Home looks to have learned nothing from its predecessor, with Annabelle needing to be treated less like Chucky and more like the hellish, manipulative monster that she is supposed to be.