Annabelle

Annabelle was directed by John R. Leonetti and was released on October 3rd, 2014 (United States). The film was nominated for many awards such as Best Horror Film (Empire Awards, UK) 2015, Fright Meter Awards 2014, Best Supporting Actress (Alfre Woodard), MTV Movie Awards 2015 and People’s Choice Awards (USA 2015). The film has a BBFC rating of 15, which means that people under the age of 15 cannot what the film. Therefore, the target audience are young adults. The trailer is 2 minutes and 33 seconds long and the teaser trailer is 1 minutes and 30 seconds long. The film was advertised though many different platforms such as a trailer, film poster, teaser, website and social media. The advertising was successful because the film made $256.9 million. In the U.S. and Canada, Annabelle is the fourteenth highest-grossing horror/supernatural film. Annabelle was at the top of the Box Office during the opening day, making $15.4 million. The film debuted at #2 at the box office with $37,134,255, at an average of $11,659 per theatre from 3,185 theatres after a neck-and-neck competition against Gone Girl which earned $37.5 million. The two releases were separated by $378,854. Its opening weekend gross is the eleventh highest in October and the biggest for a horror genre film of 2014, surpassing The Purge: Anarchy’s $28.9 million opening. The production companies who produced the film were New Line Cinema Atomic Monster Productions, The Safran Company and RatPac Entertainment and the film was produced by Peter Safran James Wan. Furthermore, Annabelle was distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film’s budget was $6.5 million and it made $256.9 million at the Box Office. The film stars Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Alfre Woodard and Tom Elkins. The genre of this film is Horror which I agree with because Annabelle contains features such as low-key lighting, suspense, and dramatic score to increase the scary atmosphere of the film.

During the beginning of the opening, the audience is shown a passage of text which explains the history of dolls. The colour of the text is red, which highlights the danger surrounding dolls. This is because the colour red has the connotations of dangerous and evil. Furthermore, the red text is on a black background, which also suggests that “Annabelle”, the doll in the film, is evil because the colour black has the connotations of evil and scary.
An extreme close-up is of Annabelle’s eye is shown to the audience, which creates an eerie mood and atmosphere because it makes the audience feel as though the doll is staring at them. Furthermore, the extreme close-up of the doll allows the viewers to see that the doll is damaged and slightly dirty. This suggests that the doll is very old and has had many owners. Therefore, this suggests that there is something wrong with the doll because it has had many owners as Annabelle may be unwanted.
Low-key lighting is used throughout the opening of Annabelle to magnify the eerie mood and atmosphere. Furthermore, the low-key lighting helps to reflect the way the characters in the opening of the film because they are talking about how they fear the doll. This shows the audience that the previous owners of the doll experienced some unpleasant events, which suggests to the audience that the people who buy the doll next will also experience unpleasant events.
The camera pans between the two characters who are talking about Annabelle. This highlights to the spectators that the characters are unsure how to explain what happened with the doll. Therefore, this suggests, that the experiences that the characters had with the doll left them speechless and confused. During the panning between the characters, the dialogue is very quiet, which suggests that they are scared about talking about the doll. In addition, it suggests that the character do not want Annabelle, who is sitting on the chair next to them, to hear what they are saying. This seems strange because dolls are not real and cannot hear what they are saying, therefore, the dialogue represents the characters talking about the doll as crazy and delusional.
The doll is wearing a white dress, which juxtaposes what she is really like. This is because the colour white has the connotations of the colour white are pure and innocent, whereas Annabelle is dangerous and evil. However, as the camera zoom into the dolls dress, the audience can see that the dress has a rose on it. This is similar to the doll because the connotations of the colour red are evil.
As the camera zooms into the doll, the score increases. This creates a mysterious mood and atmosphere because the audience is unsure what is going to happen next. The increase in score increases the suspense during the scene because the audience does not know what to expect.
At the end of the extract, there is a close-up of a gargoyle, which creates a mysterious mood and atmosphere because the audience are unsure where the close-up is set until the camera zooms out. This may make the audience feel more at ease because gargoyles are sometimes put in churches to ward off evil. However, gargoyles can also symbolise evil, which may foreshadow what happens further on in the film because Annabelle is represented as evil and may perform evil acts later on in the film.