Tag: Peter Safran

Annabelle Comes Home

Rated: MAnnabelle Comes Home

Directed by: Gary Dauberman

Written by: Gary Dauberman and James Wan

Produced by: Peter Safran, James Wan

Starring: McKenna Grace, Madison Iseman, Katie Sarife, Patrick Wilson, Vera Farmiga.

‘Not all ghosts are bad, right?’

In this third instalment of the Annabelle series, we find Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) taking the doll, Annabelle off the hands of some very frightened nurses – circa the end of The Conjuring (2013).

The relationship between Ed and Lorraine is as always, close and personal and sweet – unlike their life’s work of containing the demons infesting the lives of those still of this world.

It’s a familiar feeling, seeing the Warrens return, and the doll, Annabelle.

James Wan (director and co-writer of, The Conjuring 2 (2016) and also co-writer of the original, The Conjuring) co-wrote this instalment, along with Gary Dauberman.  But the direction is all Dauberman – his debut after successfully writing the two previous Annabelle films.

And the atmosphere is tense.

There’s something about Lorrain’s eyes that’s used so well here – the expressive concern compared to the doll’s wooden cracked stare.  This is just one of the many techniques used to ramp-up the tension.

The demonologists leave their young daughter Judy (McKenna Grace) in the hands of the ever-reliable baby-sitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) while they venture out to another job.

Most of the film is set in that 70s style house of laminate kitchen, low hanging lights and orange and brown decor.  Back to the house holding the room with three locks and a sign asking, Do Not Touch Anything; filled with all the objects touched with evil, to have a priest pray over every week to keep the demons where they’re supposed to be: contained.

This is the focus of the film, the Occult Museum and the misguided friend, Daniela (Katie Sarife) who releases all within in it.

The film isn’t about Lorraine and Ed, this is about the three young girls fighting for their souls and sanity while the demon that controls the doll Annabelle acts as a beacon that calls all the other spirits.

The suspense is built on the creepy atmosphere of the house, bit by bit – the sounds of static and touches of orchestral sounds keeping up the edge.  And the turn of light through blue, green, yellow and red cellophane revealing hidden spirits turn the house into something like a freak show – all set to a sometimes still silence while you wait and wait for that next scare.

There’s some lightness to break the tension, ‘Don’t touch her, you’ll get obsessed,’ says one kid at Judy’s school.

And there’s a kind of sweetness to the relationship between the girls and the want-to-be-brave boyfriend that manages not to be cheesy, making Annabelle Comes Home not horrific but still scary because of the suspense.

Some of the objects in that room really get the heart pumping – who would have thought a reflection seen in an old tube TV could be so creepy.

So there’s plenty of tension but the violence doesn’t evolve.  It’s more the threat that kept me on edge.

In the end, the film felt more like a homage to the Warren family, with the recent passing of Lorraine Warren: 1927 – 2019.

I wonder if she’s still floating about, haunting anything – like ringing her spirit bells, just for fun.

Shazam!

Rated: MShazam!

Directed by: David F. Sandberg

Screenplay by: Henry Gayden

Story by: Gayden and Darren Lemke

Created by: Bill Parker and C. C. Beck

Produced by: Peter Safran

Starring: Zachary Levi, Asher Angel, Mark Strong, Jack Dylan Grazer, Grace Fulton, Faithe Herman, Ian Chen, Jovan Armand, Cooper Andrews, Marta Milans and Djimon Hounsou.

From the DC Universe, writers Henry Gayden and Darren Lemke adapted Shazam! from the comics, creating a movie about a superhero, yes; but also about the superhero being a kid.

Gayden recalls, “I enjoyed writing it from the perspective of a kid, channelling the logic of a 14-year-old who suddenly has all these powers and who’s not thinking, ‘How can I save the world,’ but, ‘What cool stuff can I do?’”

We get the backstory of Billy Batson (Asher Angel)getting lost and separated from his mother at a Fair (what is it with carnivals, eh?!) and having to grow up in foster care while doing everything he can, whatever it takes, to find his mother.

We also get the backstory of super villain, Dr Thaddeus Sivana (Mark Strong) – never being good enough for his father, always looking to his Magic 8-Ball for answers; where the ‘Outlook, not so good.’

Young Billy meets an ancient wizard (Djimon Hounsou) who’s looking for the pure of heart to relieve him of his burden, to take his power; to become the keeper of the Seven Deadly Sins: soulless depravities held captive in stone.

This is where reality meets fantasy.

One minute Billy’s on the subway; the next, he’s in the Rock of Eternity.

By speaking the name of the wizard, he inherits the power of the wizard, Shazam:

Solomon: wisdom

Hercules: strength

Atlantis: endurance

Zeus: power

Achilles: fighting

Mercury: speed.

And what fun Billy has as the adult-sized superhero, Shazam (Zachary Levi).  Until he meets his nemesis, Dr Thaddeus Sivana.

Well known horror director, David F. Sandberg (Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation) has shown his humorous and cheeky side with this film.  He even included the Annabelle doll lying dormant in a pawn shop at the beginning of the film – that’s cheeky.

Sandberg has kept some of that horror flavour here, with the Seven Deadly Sins coming to life as man-eating demons that not only tempt and turn human against human with their evil glowing red eyes, but physically bite their heads off.

The soundtrack adds to the ominous atmosphere, as does the disintegration of flesh into sparks to embers to ash and smoke.

What makes Shazam! so funny is the juxtaposition of this darkness with the total normality of kids being kids.

Along with the antics of Billy and Billy being Shazam, we get a household full of sidekicks: foster parents, Rosa (Marta Milans) and Victor Vasquez (Cooper Andrews) and foster kids, Darla (Faithe Herman), Mary (Grace Fulton), Eugene (Ian Chen), Pedro (Jovan Armand), and my favourite, Freddy (Jack Dylan Grazer).

Freddy knows all the superhero moves and becomes Shazam’s manager, teaching him, or rather testing him, to see what super powers he has.

‘His name is, Thunder Crack!’

And added titbits like, ‘Did you know the Roman’s brushed their teeth with their urine?  It works, apparently.’

Freddy made the film for me.

As did the writing, the scary-at-times fantasy and those perfectly timed lines that lifted the film, that tickled to bursts of laughter; that kept me grinning until the very end.

Aquaman

Rated: MAquaman

Directed by: James Wan

Story by: James Wan, Will Beall, Geoff Johns

Screenplay by: Will Beall, David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick

Based on characters created by: Paul Norris and Mort Weisinger for DC

Produced by: Rob Cowan, Peter Safran

Starring: Jason Momoa, Amber Heard, Willem Dafoe, Patrick Wilson, Dolph Lundgren, Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Nicole Kidman, Ludi Lin and Temuera Morrison.

Aquaman was always going to be a difficult adaptation – the film about ‘fish boy[‘s].  No, it’s fish men!’; the setting underwater.

But with James Wan as director and one of the writers, I went into the film somewhat reassured.

Then the film opened with Atlanna (Nicole Kidman), Atlantean royalty meeting a surface dweller, and I was thrown because I just couldn’t believe I was seeing an Atlantis queen falling in love, the contrast a little too much.

Perhaps it was seeing Nicole Kidman as an action figure?!

And there were times when I really couldn’t decide whether to laugh with the film or at it – the guitar riff to highlight a joke not helping.

Yet, as the film progressed and Jason Momoa as Aquaman opened up to give us a down-to-earth (well, half-surface dweller, half-Atlantean Arthur Curry) hero, I became more absorbed.

Forbidden love between a queen of the sea and a man from the surface bears a forbidden son, a half-breed.  Aquaman.

Yet even as a half-breed, Aquaman has the right to claim the throne of Atlantis instead of his younger brother Orm (Patrick Wilson) who plots to become the Ocean Master; to bring together all seven kingdoms of the underwater world: Atlantis, Brine, Fisherman, Xebel, Trench, Deserter and the Lost.  Together they can destroy those on the surface.

Afterall, aren’t the surface-dwellers creating pollution and trashing the sea into poison for those who inhabit its waters?

Those who want peace with the surface dwellers not war, rise to the surface to seek Aquaman to fight for the throne to then save those above and below, with love-interest Mera (Amber Heard) abandoning Atlantis, just like his mother.  All leading to the meeting of the two brothers on opposing sides of an inevitable battle.

The writers have created enough twists and turns to keep the film interesting and it has to be noted the film has a different tone to the other DC, Justice League films.

Aquaman is more a technologically based world with an 80s-esq tone including synth soundtrack and fluorescent lit underwater worlds that become more spectacular as the film progresses.

Let me state again, it gets better!

There’s the expected cheese, because, yeah, this is Aquaman: Son of the land, king of the sea.

But Wan has offset this with humour and his own unique style.

Jason Momoa’s performance as Aquaman certainly helped.

So after an ordinary beginning, Aquaman ramps up to a deliver a visually stunning entertainer that was able to take a laugh at itself with a story that comes full circle.

The Nun

Rated: MA15+The Nun

Directed by: Corin Hardy

Screenplay by: Gary Dauberman

Story by: James Wan & Gary Dauberman

Produced by: Peter Safran, p.g.a, James Wan, p.g.a

Starring: Demian Bichir, Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bloquet, Bonnie Aarons.

After first making her presence known in, ‘The Conjuring 2’, audiences were left wondering where the demonic being, Nun Valak originated.  Here, ‘The Nun’ is set in 1952 in Romania where screen writer Gary Dauberman (“IT,” the “Annabelle” films) explores the beginnings of this force dripping with evil, leaking its way out of the chasm beneath the cloister where nuns worship isolated from the rest of the world.

Director Corin Hardy makes full use of filming in the dark 14th-century castles of Romania, including the Abby of St. Carta, with tunnels beneath the surface creating shadows and inescapable hallways as Father Burke (Demian Bichir), novitiate on the threshold of her final vow, Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) and local villager Frenchie (Jonas Bloquet) investigate the suicide of a nun.

The more they dig, the more horror they find buried beneath the surface (so to speak).

I had high hopes for, ‘The Nun’ after the introduction of this terrifying creature in, ‘The Conjuring 2’ (where many in the audience left because it was so scary!) but instead of the build-up and surprising evolution of terror, here we have moments of panning like pregnant moments in a day-time soap opera.  Instead of building to climax, the moments are just… left…

The flowing shadows of spectres and bell-ringing from graves set the scene and the believable and wide-eyed Sister Irene answered some of our questions about The Nun.  But I was left with more questions unanswered about the murder of nuns who were left murderous without explanation.

I’m glad we weren’t left with a psycho exorcist film which really could have been a focus here, with all the Catholicism and crosses and well, possessed nuns.  But there were red-herrings and loose threads that just didn’t pull the story together well enough to be truly scary.  Long moments left to drift didn’t make suspense.  And the overreliance of the scare-factor of evil nuns made the nuns not so scary.

I liked that there was no digitisation used to create the spectre of The Nun; and there was some clever camera work using a Steadicam for Sister Irene versus handheld for Father Burke.  But there was none of the subtle, corner-of-your-eye moment where The Nun appears like she’s been created out of your subconscious.   So there was that missing creeping under the skin that Wan manages to create with the early instalments of Insidious and The Conjuring series.

Weaving back to the Conjuring verse made The Nun feel more like the Annabelle series than a Conjuring Part 3 – which didn’t make it terrible, just not as good as it could have been.

Annabelle: Creation

Rated: MA 15+Annabelle: Creation

Director: David F. Sandberg

Produced by: Peter Safran, James Wan

Screenplay: Gary Dauberman

Starring: Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson, Philippa Coulthard, Grace Fulton, Lou Lou Safran, Samara Lee, Tayler Buck, Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto.

Coming out of the cinema whistling, You are my Sunshine, after watching a horror movie may sound sinister, but there was a tongue-in-cheek, wry streak to, Annabelle: Creation.

Set in what looks like the 1930s, Samuel Mullins, a dollmaker (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife, Esther (Miranda Otto) live an idyllic life in the countryside with their daughter Bee (Samara Lee), short for Annabelle.

Then tragedy strikes and Bee is taken from them.

Years later, time has taken its toll on the dollmaker and his wife, but they decide to make their home into an orphanage where several young girls and Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) come to live with them, to bring some happiness back into the household.

It only takes one night for the daemonic Being inhabiting a life-sized doll to make its presence known.  And slowly, the creation of Annabelle, the possessed, is revealed.

Annabelle: Creation

Producers, Peter Safran and James Wan, who brought, The Conjuring series have partnered up once again for, Annabelle: Creation.

Directing is David F. Sandberg (Lights Out (2016)) from a screenplay written by Gary Dauberman who also wrote the first, Annabelle.

Happily, for fans of, The Conjuring, there are threads tying pieces of the films together and the linking of, Creation to the original, Annabelle is seamless.

New to the franchise is the cast with, Anthony LaPaglia as the foreboding husband and, Miranda Otto as the wife.

I can’t decide whether I like Lulu Wilson as Linda who also had a starring role in the recent, Ouija: Origin of Evil (2016).  I liked her better here, with  direction highlighting her, too-good-it’s-creepy personality adding to that wry flavour.

There’s a fine line between comedy and horror.  You don’t want the audience laughing at the movie, you want the audience to laugh with the movie and at some points of the film, particularly with Linda on scene, it was a close call.Annabelle: Creation

But as the film progressed and the ramping of tension increased with Sandberg once again making use of light and darkness and classic devices such as super-freaky scarecrows and sheets over the, ‘not there’, I was happy for a bit of comic relief from young Linda.

But I have to admit I wanted the film to be scarier.

I felt there was a lighter touch here, compared to say, the recent, The Conjuring 2 (2016) (which I gave 4.5/5) as there wasn’t enough reason for the daemonic Being inhabiting the doll to attack some and not others.

Strengthening the backstory would have added so much more.

Sure, keep the mystery but showing more would have added to the fear – it can’t be just because one person is more physically weak than the others, right?

Not the super-scare factor I was hoping for, but there were a few jumps and tense moments with effective use of the soundtrack; and linking to the original, Annabelle and, The Conjuring series will satisfy fans.

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