ANNABELLE: DOPO 'L'EVOCAZIONE- THE CONJURING' TORNANO NEL PREQUEL DI JOHN R. LEONETTI, GLI INVESTIGATORI PATRICK WILSON E VERA FARMIGA. A DARE IL LA AD UN NUOVO HORROR UNA BAMBOLA DI NOME ANNABELLE

Prendete la scarsa necessità di fare un nuovo film horror senza idee, aggiungete che il buon successo commerciale di The Conjuring - L’evocazione necessitava di un sequel/prequel/reboot/etc., e avrete Annabelle, l’horror di John R. Leonetti annacquato e già visto. Considerate però che la cosa relativamente buona - ma le buone idee quando non vengono bene usate possono essere doppiamente dannose - è che l’opera in questione è stata costruita per omaggiare tutto quel tardo cinema anni Sessanta sul genere, il massimo della citazione sarebbe il capolavoro di Roman Polanski Rosemary’s Baby: non a caso anche qui la protagonista è incinta e un demone sembra aleggiare nella sua vita. Prendete poi il fenomeno mediatico scatenato proprio dalla paura instillata con gli omicidi perpetrati nella casa del regista polacco dai seguaci della setta di Charles Manson (citato insieme a qualche frammento di serialità televisiva per contestualizzare il periodo storico), dove persero la

vita, la notte del 9 agosto 1989, la sua giovane moglie Sharon Tate, incinta, e un gruppo di amici. Prendete ancora il feticcio delle bambole, ossessione di collezionisti di ogni età e censo, oggetto di un altro lungo filone di cinema di genere sviluppatosi in particolare alla fine degli anni Ottanta con La bambola assassina (di Jack Bender). Prendete infine la bambola in questione e acconciatela come la Bette Davis in versione kitsch e molto poco materna di Che fine ha fatto Baby Jane?.

Ecco, tutto questo è Annabelle, un film che sulla carta si appropria di letteratura, cinema, cronaca e sottocultura, ma a conti fatti è una baracca intrisa di una banalità sconfortante. Una pellicola che si guarda per noia, anche se ha l’unico pregio di tenere desta in qualche piccola occasione l’attenzione dello spettatore, pur mai coinvolgendolo a pieno perché - mi si passi l’orribile espressione inflazionata come

la trama di questo film e che si usava illo tempore - è del tutto telefonatissimo. Anche la ricostruzione dell’ambiente lascia alquanto delusi perché a tratti sembra di essere più negli anni Novanta che negli anni Sessanta per trucco e parrucco. Peccato sprecare il talento della candidata all’Oscar, vincitrice di Golden Globe ed Emmy vari Alfre Woodard, nel piccolo ruolo di una libraia che ha perso una figlia molti anni prima e che sarà fondamentale nella risoluzione della trama: troppo esile per giustificare il prezzo di un biglietto al cinema in questo tempo di crisi economica.

THE DEVIL DOLL WITH THE PIG TAILS, ROSY CHEEKS AND FREAKY COME-HITHER STARE TAKES CENTER STAGE IN A CUT-RATE 'CONJURING' SPINOFF THAT'S MORE WAN THAN WAN.

The scares are cheap but periodically effective in “Annabelle,” a cut-rate spinoff from James Wan’s superlative haunted-house hit “The Conjuring” that (partly) makes up in crude shock effects what it lacks in craft, atmosphere and just about every other department. Designed mainly as a starring vehicle for the eponymous, creepy-as-hell doll (who easily outclasses her human co-stars), this WB/New Line quickie will slake the thirst of die-hard genre fans put out by the abysmal “Dracula Untold.” Mere casual fright fans are advised to wait for the proper sequel, “The Conjuring 2,” due in 2015.

Among the many objects from paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren’s cabinet of demonically possessed curiosities that got their closeups in “The Conjuring,” the indisputable scene-stealer was Annabelle, a pigtailed, rosy-cheeked

wooden moppet who looked like Howdy Doody in drag, or Raggedy Ann after a long night in the wrong part of town. Now, in “Annabelle,” director John R. Leonetti (Wan’s longtime cinematographer) and screenwriter Gary Dauberman take us back to 1969, when Annabelle was just a normal, ordinary (if still freaky-looking) doll in the collection of a Santa Monica housewife (Annabelle Wallis) and her med-student husband (Ward Horton).

That the wife is named Mia and her husband John is the first of many signs that the makers of “Annabelle” have a major jones for “Rosemary’s Baby” and, by extension, Roman Polanski. This becomes all the more apparent in a grisly sequence exploitatively modeled on the Manson Family’s Tate-Labianca murders, in which the deranged, Satan-worshiping hippie daughter of Mia and John’s next-door neighbors violently attacks the couple in their home (with Satan-worshiping hippie boyfriend in tow), resulting in a kitchen knife being

plunged straight into Mia’s bulging belly. Miraculously, the injured parties survive (the hippies do not), but when Mia returns from the hospital, something doesn’t seem quite right around the Good Housekeeping homestead. In particular, something doesn’t seem quite right about Annabelle.

In the pantheon of cinematic devil dolls, Annabelle plays a game of inches, changing her position on the shelf or methodically rocking back and forth in a creaky chair, but never full-on running through the house wielding a weapon like the diminutive kewpie doll of Dan Curtis’s 1975 cult classic “Trilogy of Terror,” or Chucky of the “Child’s Play” franchise (who would sure make a swell beau for Annabelle if he weren’t already taken). But no matter: Wherever Annabelle goes, trouble seems sure to follow, in the form of mysteriously slamming doors and malfunctioning appliances (TV, oven, sewing machine), all of which Leonetti milks for every ounce of ominous portent

(though, really, there is only so much one can do with a demonically possessed tin of stove-top popcorn).

It’s only when John’s residency occasions a family move to tree-lined Pasadena that “Annabelle” brings out the bigger guns, including imperiled baby carriages, ectoplasmic apparitions and a full-on winged demon, courtesy of makeup effects wizards Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger. Whereas Wan (who takes a producer credit here) is probably the contemporary horror stylist the closest in spirit to the ‘70s maestros (De Palma, Friedkin, Polanski) “Annabelle” can’t stop aping, Leonetti (who previously helmed the deservedly forgotten “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” and “The Butterfly Effect 2”) is more of a crash-and-grab pastiche artist who rarely moves past superficial homage. Pretty much on cue, a friend-or-foe neighbor rears her head (Alfre Woodard, in the Ruth Gordon part), a God-fearing priest (Tony Amendola, a dead ringer for F. Murray Abraham) arrives on the scene, and a

turntable won’t stop playing The Association singing “Cherish” (used here the way John Carpenter used “Mr. Sandman” in “Halloween”) — before, literally and figuratively, all hell breaks loose.

But when it comes to “Annabelle’s” five or six big stinger moments, Leonetti manages to deliver the jolts, and if audiences are sure to head home complaining about how dumb and predictable it all was, many may also find themselves nursing their significant others’ lightly bruised forearms. In this, Leonetti gets a big hand from editor Tom Elkins and composer Joseph Bishara (“Insidious,” “The Conjuring”), whose score is still doing basso profundo backflips even as the end credits are rolling.

Obviously constrained by a small budget, production designer Bob Ziembicki can’t hope to replicate the well-appointed period design of Wan’s film (a couple of period cars are about all you get here), while cinematographer James Kniest’s lighting has more in common with the daytime

soaps Mia watches on her fuzzy TV than with Leonetti’s lushly textured lensing on the previous film.