Fear in

cinema:
Annabelle

Nahid Taheri
Team Member

or people who watched The Conjuring

last year and liked it, you may enjoy the
prequel, Annabelle. The Conjuring is a nail-
biting, hide-behind-your-hands thriller.
Based on true life events, Ed and Lorraine
Warren are paranormal investigators sent to
help a family terrorized by a demon--said to
be one of the most terrifying cases of their
lives which they hadn't shared with anyone...
until now.

Set in 1971, The Conjuring is a story of
haunting that happened in the Rhode
Island home of the Perron family. Things
start getting freaky and the parents enlist
the help of Ed and Lorraine Warren. The
Conjuring is presenting a classic ghost story
with great steadicam shots, making the
audience familiar with house itself. With
virtually no sex, gore, or cursing, The
Conjuring earns its R-rating on scares alone.
The audience cares for the characters, and
the story is compelling enough to make
you feel interested the whole time.

We met the creepy vintage doll Annabelle

in The Conjuring. She was just the front act
there, showing up only at the pre-opening
credits sequence. This year, we get to know
how she came to be demonically possessed.
The film is set ten years before The Conjuring
in a California suburb. Young couple John and
Mia are expecting their first child, and Mia
has a doll collection. One of these dolls is the
titillating vintage doll gifted by her medical
student husband John (Ward Horton).

Although the real-life Annabelle doll, which
is kept in Ed and Lorraine Warren's Occult
Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, is known
for some frightening events, the characters
of this movie are fictional and just some
parts are based on the true Annabelle story.

Annabelle certainly doesn't reinvent the
horror genre, but it's still an atmospheric
and diversified movie that quickly grabs
your attention and will haunt you until the
very end. When the satanic cult members
assassinate an old couple and attack the two
main actors, the movie becomes gripping.
When a fire breaks out and menaces the
pregnant main actress, viewers were on

the edge of their seats. The haunting scene
leading to a stroller smashed by a truck is
also horrific. It is a good thing that the entire
movie doesn't only play at one location and
only involves supernatural phenomenon.

Even though the movie avoided a few
stereotypes such as an exorcism, some parts
were still highly predictable: the scared
housewife nobody believes in, the wicked
demon trying to take possession of a child's
innocent soul, and the heroic actions of an
old pastor attempting to save a young family
and community members...all elements that
horror movie fans have seen numerous times
before. In that sense, the movie lacked some
originality and, ultimately, tension towards
the end. Regardless, fans of traditional horror
movies or more recent outputs by James Wan
and his colleagues should watch Annabelle
this Halloween. This movie isn't the best of
the year, but is still a professionally executed
and highly above average horror flick.

Alolloween

Helo Stave

Off Boredom

Screw the Monster Mash!

Colin Slark
Team Member

his Halloween, impress your friends

with something really scary. Not horror
movies, not costumes, but really, truly,
gruesomely bad music. The following songs
are so awful that they will leave a bad taste
in your mind well after they have stopped

playing.

“The Kids” by Lou Reed: This is the most
horrible thing I have ever heard. The first
four minutes are a droning wail about how
a woman had her kids taken away because
she was a bad mother. Halfway through
the song, Lou Reed starts playing the
recorder really, really badly, as the sound
of crying children fades in. Rumour has

it that a group of children were led into a
recording booth and told their mothers
had died in order to get that recording.

“My Pal Foot Foot” by The Shaggs: Trying

to locate an imaginary friend could be a
good basis for a song, but not when you're
seemingly unable to write compelling lyrics,
sing, or play instruments. Each member of
The Shaggs seems to be playing their own
song and ignoring all the others, creating

a cacophonous, nonsensical mess.

“I’ve Never Been To Me” by Charlene: If
you ignore the lyrics of this song, you
could perhaps dismiss it out of hand as

bad 80s elevator muzak, but with them

you get perhaps the most vapid song ever
written. The central concern of the song
seems to be that a woman is shamed by her
promiscuity and inability to form lasting

relationships. Charlene insists that this
means that she has “never been to me,”
but I have no idea what that means.

“Who Killed Bambi” by Tenpole Tudor:
This one features a man who sounds like a
drunk British auctioneer singing about the
greatest crime ever committed: the murder
of Bambi. The writer of the song seems to
blame a hippie for killing Bambi, which

if 1 understand the general philosophy

of hippies, is a strange assumption.

Metal Machine Music by Lou Reed: Okay,

this one is cheating a bit as I’m listing

the entire album. What do you get when

a disgruntled musician is pressured into
producing an album for a record company
he’s disillusioned with? You get Metal Machine
Music, which is approximately 65 minutes of
guitar feedback at different speeds. Want to
test yourself? Look for it somewhere and try
to get through ten minutes of it. I dare you.

“Anything at All” by Wesley Willis: I don’t
want to talk too much about Wesley Willis
as I feel like it would ruin the magic. Just
have a listen to “Rock n’ Roll McDonalds”
or “Suck a Cheetah’s Dick” and learn

why this man was unappreciated in his
lifetime, but adored by Youtube.

When scaring your friends with these
songs, please take caution. Any one
of them is enough to drive a person
out of their minds, and more than
one could do irreversible damage.

This Halloween, please scare responsibly,
lest you reduce a person's eardrums to jelly.