Until now, the Annabelle doll was the most profitable derivative of The Conjuring for New Line Cinema, the arm of Warner Bros. With yet another movie in the account, "Annabelle Comes Home" has the challenge of avoiding the wear of the character as a scary antagonist and continuing to attract viewers. Screenwriter Gary Dauberman (It - 2017) takes the reins of the sequel, makes his directorial debut giving a different tone to the franchise and gets a gratifying respite for the demonic doll story.

Paranormal investigators Ed (Patrick Wilson, "Insidious - 2010") and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga, "Up In The Air - 2009") serve as distinguished hosts to introduce the plot. It begins immediately after the prologue to "Invocation of Evil", when the couple brings the cursed doll home "for safety". They lock her in a special box inside a room, where they already keep a huge collection of sinister artifacts collected over her career in confronting spirits. Message is given: Annabelle is the most dangerous of objects because she has the power to attract evil entities like a great beacon. The film's conflicts come a year later, when the couple leave their ten-year-old daughter, Judy (Mckenna Grace, "Captain Marvel"), in the care of nanny Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman, "Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle") and, of course, the doll manages to escape.

Unlike what one might assume, Annabelle is not a possessed puppet like Chucky who goes out to kill for perversity. It functions as a conduit for the real dangers beyond. These yes come thirsty for possessing human bodies and stealing souls. When Mary Ellen's friend Daniela (Katie Sarife, from the series "Youth & Consequences"), manages to enter the "warehouse" of the Warrens, she unintentionally releases not only the doll and the malicious entity that comes through her, but several other horrifying beings ready to strike terror into the house. The girls then have to deal with a phantom werewolf, a murderous bride, Annabelle's little friends and a handful of creatures from the worst nightmares.

Acting as a horror film that does not exclusively cater to fans of the James Wan universe, Annabelle Comes Home is a visually and narratively interesting production well-conceived as a dramatic path of characters secure in their social (religion) and psychological convictions (faith). The delicious and infamous use of jump scare is still a very present feature in the sound mix signed by Robert Sharman, but unlike some other films in the franchise, it doesn't appear as a crutch to support narrative of a too weak story, as happened with the cinematographic aberration that was the first damn doll movie.

Annabelle's evil is released for reasons that, if seemingly preposterous at first, are sufficiently justified shortly thereafter, subverting some of the expectations by bringing some emotional depth to the occasion. As the Warren's daughter Judy (McKenna Grace), her nanny Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) and friend Daniela (Katie Sarife) face the doll-influenced spirits, other small arches are rescued and incorporated, such as the crush Bob (Michael) Cimino), comic relief of the time. The first half of the film is perhaps the most successful for defying the conventions of what is expected from a film with this brand. The intro promises a scare that doesn't come, and in it the sudden appearances are not accompanied by accented sounds. In the Warren house, tension builds through the silence as the nanny and her friend walk through the rooms, and at the end of these silences there is... more silence. When there is a scare, it comes at an unexpected and conquered moment.

In his directorial debut, Dauberman does not display an extravagant performance, but shows talent in his restraint, not always wanting to emulate James Wan's floating camera and focusing on the careful composition of frames in order to enhance the small spaces of the house. There is enough negative space in each frame to keep the viewer analyzing their surroundings, waiting for some apparition at the end of a room or a hallway, without needing more elaborate camera tricks. The director uses this expectation to create an atmosphere of tension in place of cheap awe, raising the quality of the horror. The director is aware of clichés and sought opportunities to pervert them with a script that is smarter than formulas. When the viewer thinks they already know what is going to happen in a scene, something not so expected happens and keeps the suspense longer. The shiver comes from the camera play and from the elements placed in the frame at calculated moments. In addition to easter eggs from the franchise itself, Gary also plants references to classics by Tobe Hooper and tales by Stephen King to enrich the film.

Finally, it is human motivations and very identifiable themes such as bullying, mourning and teenage tacky that fill the emotional fabric of the film, especially thanks to the surprising performances of Mckenna Grace and Katie Sarife. Her Judy and Daniela bring an unexpected depth to the genre. On the other hand, supernatural characters do what they want, whenever they want, and the script doesn't bother to explain anything that makes sense of the hauntings other than torment (coordinately) the living.

With so many threats that finally escape the Warren's basement, and although the scale of events here is limited to a single house, the succession of frights follows a similar logic to these movies, prioritizing entertainment over internal coherence among the evil entities, which follow their own concepts. If on the one hand this unpretentiousness allows for a wide variety of scares and creative ideas, putting the viewer in a position of uncertainty as to what will come next, the frenzied nature of terror prevents each of the entities from being better developed, not just the limits amusement park monsters as it makes the film's unravel a little too random for its own good - monsters appear and disappear for no apparent reason.

As the script also introduces several entities, these could not but be inconsistent with each other as to the idealization and its realization on screen. In terms of aesthetics, the best of them are easily the Boatman, a reaper with coins over his eyes, and Annabelle herself, whose inner demon manifests itself in a fascinating way, in a tense scene with a lamp with colored filters that, when alternated, gradually reveal their true form. The Infernal Dog, who is just a typical werewolf, appears in cartoonish CGI effects that make him much less threatening than even those seen in Goosebumps feature films and series, working better when hidden or in humorous occasions - as in Bob scene in the chicken coop. The cursed wedding dress, meanwhile, is basically a mix of the Nun and La Llorona, and appears in the plot only to create an inconvenience for the protagonists in their final act. The lack of effect of entities on the narrative told here is highlighted by the hasty conclusion, far less climatic than one would expect from this premise.

If, on the one hand, everything was resolved quickly and made the plot a little fast-paced, Annabelle 3 is not a dull or tiring film, which ends up making up for this deficiency. Normally, in remarkably successful horror material, we can use the expression "breathtaking" or "shuddering" and that, unfortunately, cannot be said about this film. With wrong production decisions, Annabelle 3 is not a scary movie and can be ridiculed at times. However, thanks to the cast holding the ends, it entertains.

Gary Dauberman, already known for writing Annabelle 2:Creation and The Nun, may have been marked by his not-so-good exploits in the aforementioned features. However, his work on Annabelle 3 is surprising and surreal. The film managed to bring, right from the start, the tension that surrounds Ed and Lorraine Warren in relation to the evil spirits they fight, mixed with the need to try to guess where the scares will happen so that you are prepared. Between jokes and relaxed moments, Annabelle 3 works a lot for its main function: jump scares. Unlike the other doll movies, the third feature of the terrifying play manages to make you totally taken by surprise in parts that you don't imagine it will happen. It is the surprise element of the film that this third chapter of Annabelle stands out.

The different and fun setups and payoffs that the script sets up when introducing details that are initially insignificant, but which have importance later in the plot, deserve to be highlighted. This is a generally difficult technique to perform, and what stands out in "Annabelle 3" is the number of times it is used. In addition, sound editing as a narrative element is memorable, from the attenuation of doors and walls to the almost imperceptible layer of low frequencies, like an insistent hum that gives away the presence of spirits. Also notice how the noise that comes out of a samurai armor at a certain moment is capable of creating practically a second movie in the viewers' imagination.

For daring to build a different climate by bringing new elements to the franchise, "Annabelle Comes Home" surprises expectations with creativity and great direction. By playing with other terrifying artifacts from the Warrens' collection, the script cleverly plants opportunities for new spin offs, while giving the doll a little respite to avoid public fatigue. Even with the rhythm and a lot of creativity in the dark attacks, the film doesn't shed the weight of being a late addition to the franchise. It's always nice to see Patrick Wilson (Ed Warren) and Vera Farmiga (Lorraine Warren) duo again, but it's hard not to notice the same formula structure that made The Nun and La Llorona such lazy cookie-cutter, raising doubts about how much breath there is left. In all this.