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Annabelle | 2014 | PG-13 NR | - 2.7.2

A man (Ward Horton) purchases an antique Annabelle bride doll as a birthing gift for his wife (Annabelle Wallis). Soon afterward, members of a satanic cult break into the home and torture the couple. Also with Alfre Woodard, Eric Ladin, Kerry O'Malley, Brian Howe, Tony Amendola. Directed by John R. Leonetti. [1:38]

SEX/NUDITY 2 - A husband and his wife kiss briefly. A husband and his wife hold hands in a priest's office.
 A man says that a teen girl ran away with hippies and probably had three husbands. In a medical office, a woman with her swollen belly with protruding navel uncovered listens as the technician says that her baby is fine. A husband and his wife both say, "I love you."

VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - The film follows a worn looking, antique wooden bride doll with wide eyes, splotchy and cracked facial "skin" and red, cracked cheeks with what appears to be blood or splotched paint on one cheek; the grinning lips becomes larger and redder throughout the movie.
 A wife says that she heard a scream next door and her husband takes a bat and walks over to the other house, enters and then runs out to tell his wife to call an ambulance fast; she calls as a scraggly-haired woman charges at her and whispers noises in a deep tone when a man wearing a bloody shirt walks up behind the wife and stabs her in the abdomen and she falls bleeding; the husband enters the house and slams the second woman against a wall several times, until she runs to another part of the house and the husband shoots and kills the other man (we see some blood). In a nursery a woman sits against a wall with her head down and with an antique bride doll in her arms as she drips substantial blood onto the doll's face and we hear that she slit her own throat. We see through a bedroom window at night as a man and a woman wave their hands around and the man leaves the room; the woman makes a phone call as a huge shower of blood splashes the walls of the room from off-screen and another man carrying a long knife begins to attack the woman and the scene ends (we hear no sound except ominous music). A woman finds a large doll in an armchair and screams, "What do you want from me?" then picks up the doll and smashes it several times on a metal crib, but the doll is undamaged; the woman sees her baby lying face-up and apparently dead in the doorway and grabs her, crying before the baby changes into a laughing doll and we hear loud prolonged laughing. A woman takes a doll to a window ledge and leans backward; the camera cuts to an aerial view of her body lying face up and dead on the sidewalk in a huge pool of blood, holding the hand of the doll lying beside her.
 A woman smells something and goes to the kitchen to find all electric stove burners on and the whole room in flames and she falls onto her pregnant belly; the camera cuts to her lying in a hospital bed and we hear that she is fine, but needs to have complete bed rest before she has the baby. Some force blows a woman away from a window and we see the hem of a gown fly around a doorway and into a hallway and the woman follows it and sees a small child standing in a nursery before the child runs at her, changing into an adult woman who screams and forces the first woman into a corner, crying. An antique doll stands up by itself in a shadow, grows to the size of a child, then grows into a woman and we see a black devil's face with red eyes behind her. A priest takes a large doll away from a husband and his wife and takes them to his church in his car; we hear static and a growling voice coming from the radio the radio and it shouts, "May God have mercy on your soul!"; when the priest walks in the door of the church, an unseen power blows him and the doll back out, smashing them to the sidewalk, as a woman watches and picks up the doll and the priest lies face up in a large pool of blood and the camera cuts to a hospital corridor where two nuns talk outside a patient room and we hear that the priest is a patient; we see him in bed in a hospital with IVs of blood and a clear liquid and he opens his eyes to tell a doctor that the doll he took is evil (his eyes are bloodshot-red and his face is splotchy). A woman takes an elevator to the basement storage area of her apartment building where a baby buggy rolls into the walkway and a loud baby cry sounds for quite some time; she looks into the buggy and a large hand grabs her by the wrist and she screams and rushes to the elevator, then the stairs where she sees a large hand and then the image of Satan crouching on the stairs; still screaming, she makes it to her apartment and finds a blood mark on her arm, which matches a sign shown in a witchcraft book she sees later. A door slams and locks on a room where a baby plays on a blanket and the mother sees under the door that heavy books fall around the baby from the bookshelf, narrowly missing the child; the doors in the nursery where the mother sits all suddenly appear to have bloody faces before the solid black figure of Satan jumps down from a ceiling toward the woman and changes into a scraggly-haired woman who goes on to fall down the adjacent staircase and disappear. A woman takes her baby out of her pram outside her building, the baby buggy rolls into the street, and a huge green truck smashes it.
 A demon impersonates a priest and goes to an apartment where he stands with his back turned to an apartment door; a woman opens the door after hearing very loud pounding and the priest shouts at the camera with red eyes, a splotchy red face and a deep roaring voice, "May God have mercy on your soul!"
 A husband purchases a doll as a birthing gift for his wife and it seems to move around their apartment on its own; the rocking chair in which it sits rocks by itself in several scenes and open doors close themselves. A woman sits a doll in a rocker and returns to find it hanging over the arm of the chair. A man enters a room and finds a doll lying like a doorstop in front of the door. A sewing machine runs by itself late at night. A TV set turns on and off by itself and emits loud static. A stereo switches itself on with very loud music. A man puts a doll in a trashcan outside and when he and his wife move to a new city, they find the doll in a packing box; the woman decides to keep it and loud stomping sounds begin to occur in the apartment above them along with loud whispers in hallways when the woman is alone. Ominous music and heavy pounding footsteps in rooms overhead of the action often accompany scenes with the doll.
 We see large police photos on a desk of a man and a woman killed at home and we see two walls of a bedroom splashed almost solidly in blood, with a woman on the bed and her clothing bloody while the man lies in a pool of blood with blood on his shirt; a mark on one wall matches a mark a woman later sees on her arm. A woman with a baby speaks to a little boy and a little girl in her apartment hallway; the boy tells the girl not to give the stranger any information and continues a crayon drawing on a sheet of paper and when the woman returns, she finds a set of pictures in which a large green truck approaches her baby's pram and squashes it (we see the smashed pram and baby in red crayon blood and the crayon mom screaming with arms and hands in the air). A woman finds two drawn images of Satan and a Ram's head with clawed hands touching a baby in a witchcraft book.
 A TV reporter speaks of Charles Manson and The Family, including their drug use, brutal murders and Sharon Tate. We hear that a group referred to Charles Manson as God and Satan. We hear that a cult called Disciples of the Ram was trying to conjure the devil and demons that are in search of human souls. We hear that a teenaged girl ran away with a satanic cult and remained with them until her death, caused when she and her boyfriend attacked and killed her parents. A wife argues with her husband about the possibility of paranormal activity in their home, but her doctor husband says she has postpartum depression, causing the wife to become adamant. A husband and his wife visit their priest instead of a psychiatrist and the priest takes a haunted doll from the couple, telling them that the doll can be a conduit for demons to possess a human soul, especially a baby's soul. A woman narrates the story of how she was in a car crash with her daughter and thought that she would die until she heard her adult daughter say, "It's not your time"; the woman emerged from a coma three weeks later, but her daughter died and we see that the woman has a long scar on her arm.
 A pregnant woman sews at home and the machine needle hits her finger and we see blood as she grunts, "Ouch." In several scenes, we see a teen girl as an adult after her death walking through a house in the background behind a woman and a baby who live there.
 Two scenes feature close-ups of a gargoyle in the image of a hunched-over Satan. Two women tell an investigator that a collectible bride doll moved around their apartment on its own, until they gave it to psychic investigators. In a Catholic sermon, a priest says to let a light shine on the monsters that cause insecurities and anxieties in daily life. A priest tells a married couple that the devil is the father of lies. We see a book titled "The Devil's Welcome" in two scenes. A large doll appears in a locked glass case on which a hand printed sign reads, "WARNING! POSITIVELY DO NOT OPEN!" A caption in red letters states that a doll can never truly be destroyed.

LANGUAGE 2 - Name-calling (crazy, shrink, hocus pocus), stereotypical references to men, women, pregnant women, Catholic priests, doctors, police detectives, the haunted, believers, skeptics, exclamations (Oh my gosh), 8 religious exclamations (e.g. Oh My God, Oh God, God Knows What, May God Have Mercy On Your Soul, Please God).

SUBSTANCE USE - A priest receives an IV of clear liquid that is unmarked and an IV of blood in a hospital, and a TV reporter mentions drug use by the Charles Manson Family in connection with murders. A bottle of wine is shown on a dinner table, and a half-full wine is seen with an empty glass and a woman drinks a little from the glass of wine.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Satanic cults, conjuring spirits, murder, mayhem, paranormal activity, legends, Catholicism, the medical profession and its stance on the supernatural, communication between husband and wife, pregnancy, terror, torment, finding peace.

MESSAGE - The world may contain harmful spirits that attach themselves to objects.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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