Quality is often irrelevant in a horror movie; shock is the key.

| Oct 16, 2014

The script, by Gary Dauberman, is a clichd mess, lacking humor and surprises. But Leonetti stages some fright-worthy sequences ...

| Oct 13, 2014

The scares are orchestrated with more flair than usual, even if the best of them are all spoiled in the trailer.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 11, 2014

The toy in this prequel to agreeable period horror The Conjuring could hardly seem more sinister if it had presented Top of the Pops during the 1970s

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 11, 2014

What about this movie is supposed to scare us?

| Oct 10, 2014

The set-pieces are effectively handled, with a few goose-bump moments along the way, but the story makes no sense whatsoever.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Oct 10, 2014

Why would you want a doll looking as ugly as that in your collection in the first place?

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Oct 10, 2014

The Polanski rips begin with the obvious (having a couple named Mia and John, as in Farrow and Cassavetes, is about as blatant as you can get) and continue throughout, to an annoying degree.

| Original Score: 1.5/5 | Oct 10, 2014

Annabelle, who takes an hour to stand upright, will go down as the laziest devil-doll in movie history; compared to her, Chucky's a Harvard MBA prospect.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 9, 2014

A couple of good jumps but this Conjuring spin-off is led down by poor writing, anodyne leads and and overwhelming sense of familiarity.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 9, 2014

Every expense, basically, has been spared that might have imbued Annabelle with formidable qualities as an agent of evil. She's just a glorified prop, an excuse for bad things to happen to uninteresting people.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 9, 2014

Being startled is not the same as being scared, and speaking on behalf of other hardened critics, I have to say we weren't scared for a moment.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 3, 2014

There's real craftsmanship to the film, but it's in service of a story that can't quite support it.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 3, 2014

What we mostly get in Annabelle is what we've gotten from so many other horror films: creaking floors, funky white-robed figures, home appliances that go off on their own, mysterious writing that shows up in mysterious places.

| Oct 3, 2014

Annabelle, an effective prequel to horror pastiche The Conjuring, surpasses its predecessor simply by virtue of occasionally being scary.

| Oct 3, 2014

Although [Leonetti] covers no new ground - things are largely predictable - he pays tribute to horror classics such as "Rosemary's Baby."

| Original Score: C+ | Oct 3, 2014

As undistinguished, uninteresting, and unscary as the worst of the Chucky films.

| Original Score: 1.5/4 | Oct 3, 2014

It offers surface level scares without the undercurrent of humanity needed to make them register.

| Original Score: 1/4 | Oct 3, 2014

If you're sighing heavily at the thought of yet another stupid horror movie involving an evil doll, here's a pleasant surprise: Annabelle is actually rather decent at raising the goose bumps.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Oct 3, 2014

Laughworthy bumps in the night, creaky rocking chairs, a demon-infested basement and more gliding baby carriages than an '80s De Palma film.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Oct 3, 2014