Decent performances but I found this mostly dull and repetitive. The opening with Ed and Lorraine was great though.

This might be my favorite Conjuring movie. It is so fun and old-fashioned. The setup is campfire-story classic: autumn, 1970s, a babysitter-in-peril, a haunted house... It is one well-calibrated, bump-in-the-night set piece after another, with a few cool new Conjuring-universe spirits and a lot of style. The scare tactics are also nicely diverse; sure, it goes to the well of loud and abrupt jolts, but it also generates tension by denying the obvious scare (i.e. Lorraine holding the map in the prologue, obscuring what's beyond the car window from our view, priming us for a ghoul to pop up there), as well as having several eerie moments in which a specter is quietly in the corner of the frame. The three lead actresses are very charismatic and sympathetic. It has the usual, fairly cheesy franchise epilogue where everyone sits in a sunlit room and compares lessons learned and religious convictions (and Ed Warren pulls out his acoustic guitar), but I was not too bothered by it here.

And...

B+
1. Annabelle Comes Home
2. The Nun
3. Annabelle: Creation

B
4. The Conjuring 2
5. The Conjuring
6. Annabelle
7. The Curse of La Llorona

Very consistently decent franchise.

Yeah saw it Tuesday night and that was exactly how I found it. So boring. Could have been fun if it had a better filmmaker behind it. I swear they aren't even trying with these Conjuring Universe movies. Creation was a bright spot but the first Annabelle, The Nun, and this are mostly garbage. It is a slight step up from The Nun though. It's at least well-made, acted, etc...

C-

This is the best of CCU spinoff movies, though still below both of the main entries. The Warren's daughter facing off against her parent's greatest foes is a strong concept and leads to a lot of creepyfun scenes. I just wish they could have gotten there without resorting to the catalyst of Dumb Frustrating Character does Dumb Frustrating Things to get the ball moving. Especially when Dumb Frustrating Character is the only one who gets a real story arc in the movie.

I still give it huge points for coming up with some good scare scenes though. Both Creation and The Nun just rolled back the same sequence over and over (lets walk slowly towards a ghost and THEN IT POPS OUT FROM THE SIDE), but ACH plays with the enviroment way more.

The Conjuring 2
The Conjuring

Annabelle Comes Home
Annabelle

Annabelle Creation
The Nun

Haven't seen La Llarona.

Hated this. It was super dull. Maybe it would be better if I'd seen the rest of the franchise. I only saw this cuz my friend wanted to. At least I got to have a drink. Though now I've seen three movies about dolls in one week, haha.

D