This film has a very solid cast. Vera Farmiga (Bates Motel), Ron Livingston(Office Space), Hayley McFarland (Sons of Anarchy), Patrick Wilson (Insidious), and Lili Taylor (Four Rooms). That’s a good cast for a horror flick. Add to that, James Wan (Saw) directed it.
This girl wants to tell a scary story to these people interviewing them. There’s actually 2 girls and a dude who all live together. She says this doll was possessed. They gave permission to this girl that died in their apartment to be live in the doll so they could be friends. One night, they come home and there is a piece of paper that says “Miss Me?” written on it and the doll was in the hallway, with the red crayons that were used to write the message, and they had left her in the spare room. They check out a room and there is crayon scribbling all over, picture frames are cracked. Stuff if tipped over. It says “Miss Me?” on the ceiling and then a crayon rolls in the room. Debbie goes and throws the doll out into the dumpster.
At night there is a knocking at the door. This wakes everybody up. Debbie opens the door in her ugly ass PJ’s and there is nobody, but the note again. Then there is a knocking next to the blonde, I think her name is Camilla. So she opens the door and there was the doll sitting there. These 3 were telling the story to Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera and Patrick). They are like the experts. They say that there never was an Annabelle, but it’s a demonic spirit and they fucked up by giving it permission to come in and possess one of them.
All of this was a video shown to a college class. Either Ed and Lor (Short for Lorraine from this point forward) are teachers, or like special guest lecturers. A student asks where the doll is and Lor says someplace safe. Ed and Lor are demonologists. So we get this written paragraph, long story short, since the ’60s, Lor is a clairvoyant and Ed is the only non-ordained Demonologist recognized by the Catholic church. They have dealt with thousand of cases, but there is one case, that’s right folks, just one case that is SOOOOO malevolent, that they have kept it locked away until this very moment. Dun dun dun. Oh, and this is of course based on a true story…duh.
1971 – Harrisville, Rhode Island
I wonder if they are near Peter Griffin. Hehehehehe. OK, this family has a buttload of kids. Roger and Carolyn Perron are the parents, and they have a station wagon and they have 5 kids and a dog. The oldest is upset with this move. The dog doesn’t want to come in, and he tries dragging her, but she ain’t having it. Ohhhh, nice soundtrack. Time of the Season by the Zombies, great oldies song. The kid’s names are Andrea, Nancy, Christine, Cindy, and April. Nancy is Hayley, so she’s my favorite. April is outside by the sweet-looking tree that is on the DVD cover/movie poster. She also has a red and umbrella and it reminds me of the Umbrella Corporation in Resident evil. Hahaha, they are playing a hide and go seek and this results in a broken board on the closet wall, but it leads to a cellar, so that’s cool. One should always go down the stairs of a boarded-up cellar with no lights and just a match. He drops his matches. Carolyn wonders why it was boarded, but he seems happy. The dog is outside and barking. I fear that Ron Livingston is always going to be the lead from Office Space to me. I don’t know if he can shake that stereotype from me.
The next day. It appears the oldest has a room to herself, then the next 2 share a room and youngest 2 in the other room. Roger is downstairs, he has a light on and he wants to get the furnace running since everybody is complaining about the cold. 2 clocks in the house stopped at 3:07 and the mom has an unexplainable bruise. The young girl goes out to check on the dog, and the dog is dead. Awww, bastards.
At Ed’s home, he is giving a reporter a tour of this one room that has all sorts of things that Ed has picked up over the years. The prop department must have had a blast with this. Everything has been haunted or possessed. Sweet, that looks like a Shinto Samurai armor. He explains that he has a priest stop by every month to bless the place. There’s Annabelle in a sweet wood and glass case. The reporter asks about his wife, and he says what happened to his wife happened during the exorcism. The case says to absolutely not open her case. Nice. I love Vera, she is such a talented actress. Lor tells Ed to stop blaming himself, so something happened. She is in a rocking chair, she has all of her limbs. So I assume he is dwelling on what happened to the family.
It’s nighttime at the Perron household. Christine has her foot grabbed and blames Nancy, and Nancy like, wasn’t me sucka. Then Christine accuses her sister of farting. Earlier, Andrea said that her room smelled really bad. I guess I should have noted that. The TV comes on in the living room and wakes up Roger, who had fallen asleep at his desk. Then he hears stuff. Its the door kinda opening and closing, then it opens when he looks at it. He sees a window open and thinks that is it, but he hears more thumping. He goes to head upstairs, and there’s Andrea, and he is like, what is that noise. Of course, it is Cindy in her bedroom sleepwalking again. Cindy is walking headfirst into a cabinet in Andrea’s room. Roger tries to redirect her back to bed.
The next day. Carolyn gets out of the shower and has a bad bruise on her upper back. Roger leaves for work and sees a pigeon on the ground twitching. All the girls go off to school, except April, who is in her room talking to her new imaginary friend, Rory. In order to see him, you have to use a music box with a mirror and you will see him in the mirror when the music stops. Time to play hide and clap. The mom is blindfolded. She asks for the first clap and gets it. They are upstairs, and mom is bumping it’s everything. She is now in Andrea’s room. The cabinet/dresser opens up and we see some arms in the closet clapping. So she goes to the closet, hears breathing. Well, April was in Christine and Nancy’s room. Mom is scurred. Dad drives a truck for a living apparently. He is taking whatever work he can. He has to go to Florida apparently.
It’s night time and we are in Christine’s room and Christine starts getting pulled again, and this time she realizes that Nancy is sleeping in bed. Christine goes to look under the bed, sees nothing. She’s getting herself all worked up, goes to look again, and the door has mooed at there appears to be a figure in the room. She wakes up Nancy. She tells her that somebody is standing behind the door. Nancy gets up, there’s nobody there, but there’s the smell again. Christine says the figure is right behind her. Suddenly the door closes, Christine is screaming and flipping the fuck out. Everybody rushes in. She tells her dad that it told her that it wanted her family dead.
Back to Ed, and Lor is playing with their daughter, Judy. Ed says that he is going to check on a case, and he wants to go check it out without her because she’s worried about it happening again. Ed and Lor go to this family’s house and explains that what they are hearing the pipes and the floor kinda go together.
At the Perron’s, mommy is popping iron pills as she has a new bruise on her. She is folding laundry, hears something and tells the girls that it is way past their bedtime. As you can guess, she inspects the rooms, and of course, everybody is sleeping. then a big crash, all the kid’s pictures hanging on the staircase wall came falling down. Then the grandfather clock goes off. How the fuck did that not wake up the girls. Mom hears something else, so she goes inspecting. She sees that the closet door that leads to the basement is open, so she yells that whoever is down there, she’s going to lock them in. Suddenly the door closes, and she gets sent tumbling down the stairs. At least the light is on. A ball falls from the shelf and the lightbulb bursts. She goes up the stairs and lights a match. The match goes out. Somebody says “Want to play hide and clap”? and we see hands by her head, she flips out.
Cindy is in Andrea’s room sleepwalking, headbutting the dresser. Andrea goes and brings her into her bed. Then the dresser doors start opening and closing. Andrea goes to open the door and Cindy rises, looks scared. We see above the dresser a demon female, who jumps down on Andrea. Roger is home, he lets Carolyn out of the closet, she’s worse than Tom Cruise, and then they rush upstairs because the girls are screaming. They see Andrea on the ground wrestling with air. Roger is like, what the hell guys?
We are in Massachusetts and another lecture by Ed and Lor. We see video footage of things that they have filmed. It is some freaky shit. Ed doesn’t perform exorcisms. We have 3 stages of demonic activity. First is Infestation, like when you hear the footsteps. Second is Oppression, is when the most psychologically vulnerable gets messed with until their will is crushed. I believe that is Carolyn in the seats. The third is Possession, and well that is bad. Carolyn approaches Ed and Lor after the lecture and explains what is happening. Ed says no, but she begs them to come take a look, so Lor agrees.
The kids are watching some Brady Bunch. Ed and Lor arrive. We find out that everybody is sleeping in the living room for safety and warmth as they are constantly turning up the heat. I know this isn’t the case, but it would be neat if it was a fever-induced delirium, sorta like in Barricade, only…..ya know, a good film. Roger says that there’s no problem with the furnace that he can find, and Carolyn explains the smell. They have these double doors tied to prevent them from banging at night, they come in 3’s and end at dawn as Ed has speculated. Ed says that the smell could be demonic and that the 3 knocks are an insult to the holy trinity. Really? Also, birds keep flying to the house, breaking their necks. The clocks are all stopped at 3:07 AM. They tell them that the pictures keep getting knocked down. Carolyn then brings them to Andrea’s room, where the closet dresser is, and that came from downstairs. I need another coffee. Lor wants to see the cellar. Lor is using her clairvoyance powers and says that something awful happened here. They ask Carolyn about her bruises, and she says that it’s iron deficiency. Ed asks why they haven’t moved out. Really Ed, does it look like that is a viable option?
Ed is going to record an interview with them. Basically asks what happened from the beginning while Lor is interviewing April about Rory. Rory is always sad but says something bad happened to him. So Lor asks to see if she can use the music box to see Rory. I think that is a dandy of an idea. I want that fucking music box. It has a clown that bobs up and down, and the mirror spins and there’s a swirl on the mirror. She does see Rory briefly.
Lor and Ed go outside by the tree. Ed asks her what’s wrong and she sees some feet hanging from the tree. Roger says that they bought the house from an auction, so they don’t know anything about who used to live there. Ed tells them that the house needs an exorcism. Lor explains that she saw the body hanging from the tree when she first got there, there was a shadow latched to their back, and she saw it on the back of the kids. It doesn’t matter if they leave, they may still take it with them. Before an exorcism can even take place, Ed needs to investigate, gather proof, all that fun stuff. He asks Roger if the children have been baptized, and Roger says that his family is not a church-going family. Ed says that they may want to rethink that. Ed says the spirit don’t like Ed and Lor.
Lor is spending time with Judy and she says that she has a present for her, and it’s a locket necklace. It has a picture of Judy in it, and Judy was one with a picture of Lor and Ed in it. Ed tells Lor that Carolyn’s voice didn’t record. Hmmm. That is fucking fascinating. SO the original owners, the daughter of some lady who was in witchcraft was there. They had a baby, and in 7 days, sacrificed herself. She then got on the tree, cursed anybody who lived there, professed her love for Satan, and hung herself at 3:07. Then there’s another who had a son named Rory who disappeared, so momma killed herself. Basically lots of death. Then the audio recording starts again and they hear some fucked up shit. And their clock has stopped at 3:07.
Ed and Lor come back to the house with Drew (the Asian fellow) and Officer Brad to help out. Now they install some camera’s around the house, bells on door handles, and of course thermostats. Drew is showing Andrea about how UV sensors work, they said far out and groovy. I can dig it.
It’s now night time, time to monitor this place. The closet door to the basement opened. They are going to keep the cellar light off, so Ed, Lor, and Brad go down there. Ed is trying to get some audio recording. Ed asks the spirit to do something. They go up the stairs and thought they heard something. Ed says that sometimes it doesn’t always work, and then the door slams, scares Brad a bit.
Everybody is happy at breakfast. Ed and Lor are going to watch over the house while Roger takes the girls out for ice cream and Carolyn rests. Lor is doing laundry, well, hanging clothes to be exact, and it is getting really windy. A storm is coming. The wind blows a sheet off and it covers the form of a body briefly, then covers a window before being swept away. In the window, there was the female on top of the closet that attacked Andrea. The spirit was in Carolyn’s room, and she gets grabbed and badly bruised. Carolyn then has the demon on top of her and it is like spewing blood into her mouth and she is choking. Lor races up there, Carolyn is gagging in the bathroom, and won’t open the door. She finally does and says that she was fine. Carolyn just like blows off Lor. Roger returns and Ed is working on the car. He thanks Ed for coming out, and Ed says that he didn’t want to, it was all Lor. He explains that whatever Lor sees, always take a piece out of her. The last case, she saw something, and it took a really big piece. She didn’t eat or talk for 8 days. It was from the thing they showed while in Mass.
It’s night time, and Brad is a tired man, needs some coffee. Just like me. He keeps looking out the window at the wind chimes. He goes outside. He is sure he saw something. He finally sees the lady who killed herself, not the witch. She then screams at Brad “Look at what you made me do” and everybody comes rushing in. Cindy is now sleepwalking and heading upstairs, so let’s see where this goes. She goes in the room and the door slams shut. Drew can hear somebody else in there with her. The guys can’t break into the room. The voice shows her where he hides. They get in, and Cindy is gone. Time for the UV light. It’s cold up there, we can see Roger’s breathe. They follow footsteps to the closet. Ed finds a sliding panel in the closet, and there is a hole and that is where Cindy is. At this point, I am baptizing every mother fucker, just saying. April says that is where Rory hides when he’s afraid. It’s like this crawl space between the walls. Lor goes in exploring, and there is a shelf. Lor asks for April’s music box. She also sees a rope, and she pulls it up and it’s the noose. Suddenly the floor gives out below her, and she drops from upstairs to cellar.
Ed is frantically knocking on walls to talk to her. She’s still groggy from that fall. She hears stuff. Then she winds up the music box. Jumpscare time? We see in the mirror the mom who killed Rory. The mom’s spirit is now face to face with Lor and she says that “she” made me do it. A body falls down as if hung. yup, it’ the witch. She snags Lor’s locket necklace and goes up the stairs to Ed. Lor explains that the witch possessed the mom to kill Rory. This ties into the bruise marks. The crucifixes start falling down. Nancy’s hair is starting to come up on its own and then she gets flung against a wall. She is getting dragged all over the place. Ed tries to get her, but she gets pulled towards Brad, but then he gets spun around. Ed is diving trying to stop the dragging as does Roger. Lor snips the hairs that she is being dragged by. Drew caught it all on film.
Well, Roger and family are just getting in the car, it’s day time. Ed says that they will get the footage to the church and whatnot. Lor goes for a stroll near the tree and the dock. She walks out on the deck and sees Judy floating past her underwater. Lor runs in the house to call to check on Judy. Ed is freaking out, but Judy is ok. Lor explains that she saw the vision and takes it as a warning. The family arrives at a motel. Carolyn is not ok.
At the church, Ed and Lor show the priest the footage. He says this is complicated because the kids aren’t baptized, the family isn’t a member of the church so he needs approval from the Vatican. He says that he will push it through the best that he can.
At night, we see Judy sleeping and her locket is swinging on her lamp. Lor’s locket is moving in the basement. Judy then gets the pull. This wakes her up. She sees her grandma sleeping. She goes looking for mom and dad. She can’t find them, so she goes downstairs. She sees the door to Dad’s special room is open. Annabelle is missing. Hell, I just saw a weird shadow in my room, but it’s glare off of my glasses. Hahaha. The light goes off and she is screaming for her Nana. She gets pulled to another room. She closes the door. There are really loud banging noises. She is terrified. The lamp goes off. She turns around, there is an old lady, the witch I believe, brushing Annabelle’s hair, while in the rocking chair. Nana wakes up and is trying to get in, but can’t. Conveniently, Ed and Lor are almost home. Ed and Lor come in and Ed is gonna break the door down. The rocking chair is rotating. It is flung at Judy and Ed saves her just in time. She tells them that she was locked in the room with Annabelle. Ed goes to check, and Annabelle is in the case, it’s locked. That poor fucking girl.
At the motel, the girls come out when their dad arrives. Carolyn just took off with Christine and April. Uh oh. We see in the car, and Christine asks Carolyn where they are going and Carolyn is silent. Roger calls up Ed, tells him about and apparently Carolyn smelled like rotten meat. The witch possesses the mother to get to the child. So Ed says to meet them at the house. Ed is gonna go alone, Lor says that she has to go just as much for Judy as it is for Ed. Ed says that he can’t lose her, she says he won’t, and they need to finish it together. This ought to be all-out craziness.
They get there, the door is locked. Brad fires his shotgun and blows the door open. We hear screams. Drew is trying to save Christine from Carolyn. Carolyn had a knife I believe. They free Christine. They are trying to restrain Carolyn. They are going to bring her to the priest for an exorcism, but they don’t know where April is. Holy shit, they try bringing her out the front door, and she gets bruises on her arms and throat, the witch won’t let her leave without killing her. Her face is like burned. She gets pulled back to the closet/basement door and yells for Roger. So back down we go. She is getting flung all around the basement. Drew puts Christine in the back of the cop car, promises to be back, but he has to find April first. The clock in the background was 3:07. Carolyn flung Roger, is trying to choke out Ed. Brad comes in and gets along his haw line. Lor puts a sheet over Carolyn, and Roger wraps his arms around her that way. They want to tie her up. Carolyn chokes Ed again, but they tie her to the chair and handcuff her. The priest is too far away so Ed decides that he needs to do the exorcism himself, and tells Lor that she has to leave. Ed won’t do it while Lor is there, and Lor brought up that God brought them together for a reason, again. Drew is still searching.
Ed is gonna try this. He splashes the holy water, and everything in the room is shaking. A bird just broke the window next to Christine. Drew is having birds trying to break in after him. The bird s are all over the house. A bird breaks a window to the cellar and flies in. Drew hears something under the kitchen floor. Roger tells Ed to stop it because he’s killing her. Carolyn just spits up blood under the sheet. Lor gets in Roger’s grill. She e says it’s not about her life, but her soul at this point. Ed tells her to reveal herself, and the sheet tears and we see the witch’s face. Sweet. Carolyn’s body goes limp. Then she levitates. Her head perks up. The chair goes upside down and starts hitting the ceiling. Ed yells to put her down and so it drops her, but she doesn’t land on her head, but the chair breaks. A bookshelf or cupboard tips over and Ed moves at the last second.
Carolyn sits up laughing. Ed says to hold her down and Roger is yelling at it to leave his family alone. She turns her head and says “She’s already gone, and now you’re all gonna die.” Then a gun rises up and aims for Ed but Brad with the diving save. Drew is trying to break through the floorboard for April. He finds her, yells that he found her. Carolyn gets up, grabs scissors and takes off through the crawlspace. Carolyn is hot on April’s tracks. Guys, how did you let Carolyn get that much of a lead on you? Ed can’t make it through the hole, Roger is on the other side. Lor is above where Drew is yelling at Carolyn not to do it. Ed condemns the demon back to hell. Lor has Carolyn in like a claw from the top. So they are telling her that she has to fight it. Carolyn is remembering the beach photo from earlier, and she is trying to snap out of it. Then she starts puking up the blood. She then has a smile on her face.
It’s morning now and they are helping Carolyn out of the house and she is apologizing to April, and the family all shows up and everybody is exhausted and relieved. Drew picks on Brad briefly. Ed and Lor share a nice little kiss. Aprils walks up to Lor and gives her back the locket necklace. Roger looks at Ed and gives him the nod of appreciation, and Ed reciprocates.
Ed and Lor make their way back home. Ed goes in his special room and has the music box as his souvenir. Then a quote from Ed. We pan the camera and the music box is playing, and you know, the camera gets closer and closer and nothing. We see real-life pics of the Perron and Warren family.
End film
For those of you who don’t mind the haunted house and jump scares typically associated with it, this is a very, very, very well done movie. They had a great cast. I know that this film gets tossed in together with Sinister and Insidious, and I get why, but Insidious is garbage. This film to me is more about the house, and Sinister is more about the people. I think this is what you get if you combine Amityville Horror and Sinister, and that’s a fucking great thing. What I really enjoyed was that this had substance, and it kept building, and there wasn’t any of this lazy found footage garbage where you have the build-up and nothing happens. Nothing isn’t scary. Things happening are scary. Like, yes, it was frightening when Nancy goes to see if anybody is behind the door, and we can’t see anything, but with Christine, something actually is happening, and we did have the door slam. SO even then, we had a payoff. Build up with no payoff is not fun. That’s dropping $200 at the strip club and walking away with a semi and no satisfaction. As far as I’m concerned, for this particular sub-genre of horror, this is one of the best of the best out there. I’m actually dreading watching Annabelle now. The sound was really good in this, the lighting was good, and it didn’t over-rely on jump scares. Yes, they were there, but they were well done. The big difference between these and normal garbage ones.
Final rating:8.0
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
- New Line Cinema (presentation)
- The Safran Company (production)
- Evergreen Media Group (production)
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