John R. Leonetti
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Rosemary's Baby (1968)
Directed by Roman Polanski
influenced Annabelle (2014)
Visuals Plot Characters
Annabelle‘s Polanski homages are particularly awful in that they don’t just derive from Rosemary’s Baby, but they also reference and ape the Manson Family murders, simultaneously trying to respect Polanski while essentially shitting on the grave of his wife and unborn child.
Indeed, the story line is largely borrowed from “Rosemary’s Baby,” with nods to “The Omen,” “Witchboard,” and even “Poltergeist.”
Rosemary's Baby was released in 1968 – could Mia have been named by the filmmakers in tribute to the movie's star, Mia Farrow, who also played a maternal figure under threat?
Directed by John R. Leonetti (cinematographer of " The Conjuring " and 2011's " Insidious ") with an accomplished zing for provoking a visceral aura of tension, "Annabelle" holds a modern relevance even as its period details and deliberate yet gripping pacing remind of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and William Friedkin's "The Exorcist."
There are unsubtle nods to Rosemary’s Baby, The Changeling et al, but for the most part it’s back to the de rigueur “quiet-quiet-quiet-BOO!” formula popularised to money-spinning effect by James Wan. Director John R Leonetti served as cinematographer on several of Wan’s films (including The Conjuring) so it’s no surprise that this looks much the same – although to be fair the scares are orchestrated with more flair than usual, even if the best of them are all spoiled in the trailer.
Mia is heavily pregnant (and is the character’s name a sly homage to the star of Rosemary’s Baby?), and her husband gifts her with the large-size doll she’s apparently been coveting to complete her collection.
Directed by John R. Leonetti (cinematographer of " The Conjuring " and 2011's " Insidious ") with an accomplished zing for provoking a visceral aura of tension, "Annabelle" holds a modern relevance even as its period details and deliberate yet gripping pacing remind of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and William Friedkin's "The Exorcist."
Without revealing too much of "Annabelle" --- why spoil the film's surprises --- I can say that director John Leonetti and writer Gary Dauberman have borrowed liberally from past horror flicks like "The Ring", "The Exorcist", "Rosemary's Baby" and "Paranormal Activity".
Wan served as producer here, but director Leonetti is fresh from doing the director of photography chores on Wan’s 2013 Amityville Horror meets The Exorcist knockoff The Conjuring.
If the movie makes you want to go to church (i.e., The Exorcist), then it has done its job.
When we meet religious characters like Father Perez ( Tony Amendola ), “Annabelle” threatens to take on some " The Exorcist " or "The Omen"-like undertones, chronicling a time when some felt that Americans lost touch with their religious institutions.
“The Exorcist,” “Child’s Play” and “Rosemary’s Baby” are just a few of the films I thought about while watching “Annabelle.”
Director John R. Leonetti steers “Annabelle” in the same vein of old-school haunted house/supernatural scares that worked for “The Conjuring.”
Where James Wan's The Conjuring evoked its early-'70s period setting with a fetishistic attention to fabrics and audio-visual gadgetry, Leonetti's prequel—set a year earlier—uses the era to half-heartedly recreate the California of Joan Didion's The White Album.
The year is 1970, and John and Mia Gordon--actors Ward Horton and Annabelle Wallis, respectively, resemble theme-park approximations of The Conjuring's Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga--are good Catholic suburbanites expecting their first child.
Take Rosemary’s Baby , cram in a nod to Helter Skelter , augment with the whole “haunted object” trope, and you’ve got Annabelle , the prequel/sequel to last year’s horror megahit The Conjuring .
Last year’s “The Conjuring,” a pretty good horror movie that managed to be genuinely frightening, inspired not only a sequel, due out next year, but this prequel, featuring the sinister doll Annabelle, whose ugly mug could give Chucky’s a run for its money.
It doesn't help that the doll, conceptualized as it was in "The Conjuring," starts off looking like Chucky's demented cousin painted up like a demonic tart before it's even been made a vessel of the devil (the 'real' Annabelle locked in a case in the Warrens' occult museum is a Raggedy Ann).
Working from a lackluster script by Barbara Marshall (“Viral”), director John R. Leonetti targets a younger audience than with his R-rated “ Annabelle ,” in what amounts to an unsatisfying combination of “Final Destination” and “The Box.”
Leonetti's new movie resembles "The Monkey's Paw" and the "Final Destination" films much more than "Annabelle."
Director John R. Leonetti turns that sequence into a little symphony of hyped-up suspense that owes something to the “Final Destination” pictures.
There’s a dash of the Final Destination films here too and Leonetti clearly revels in sculpting operatic set pieces wherein the box causes fate to tear innocent people apart as its required “blood sacrifice.”
But I have to admit, when you give me a story with engaging characters, real stakes, some Final Destination-esque kill setups, and a willingness by director John R. Leonetti to push his PG-13 rating to the very limits, I’m pretty much game for anything.
If so, it is because I wished for that, and now one of you reading this will die terribly in a cheesy Final Destination -esque way.
Remember 1945's Dead of Night or Richard Attenborough's 1978 thriller, Magic, starring Anthony Hopkins as a deranged ventriloquist?
Mortal Kombat (2021)
Directed by Simon McQuoid
influenced by Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Music Visuals Plot
In the 1997 franchise-killing flop “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation,” the thunder god Lord Raiden delivers an ominous warning: “What closes can also open again.”
1997 saw the grim dawn of Mortal Kombat: Annihilation , a bizarrely cheap-looking, strangely inert mess that missed the mark so hard the series went tits up for decades (although again, great soundtrack).
It can be said this is a better movie than another entry in the franchise, the infamously bad “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation” from 1997, where the costumes look like leftovers from a high school play.
While not as solid as the surprisingly excellent 2020 animated film, Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion’s Revenge , this live-action Mortal Kombat is a giant step above 1997’s abysmal Mortal Kombat: Annihilation and the many lousy video game movies that followed.
The disastrous 1997 sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation , picks up after the tournament in Paul W.S. Anderson’s competent original, while the largely forgotten 1998 TV show Konquest , and the first season of the short-lived 2010s web series Legacy , are about events leading up to the tournament.
In the pantheon of cinematic devil dolls, Annabelle plays a game of inches, changing her position on the shelf or methodically rocking back and forth in a creaky chair, but never full-on running through the house wielding a weapon like the diminutive kewpie doll of Dan Curtis’s 1975 cult classic “Trilogy of Terror,” or Chucky of the “Child’s Play” franchise (who would sure make a swell beau for Annabelle if he weren’t already taken).
She’s no knife-wielding Chucky, from the Child’s Play series, or Richard Matheson’s great Zuni fetish doll from the 1975 TV movie Trilogy of Terror.
Annabelle's problems are legion but let's start with the bait-and-switch hook that promises Child's Play or the third movement of Trilogy of Terror and instead delivers a shadowy gargoyle who doesn't even have the courtesy to possess Annabelle; he just puppeteers her when the mood strikes.
What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962)
Directed by Robert Aldrich
influenced Annabelle (2014)
Visuals Characters
That fact that the horrific-looking thing resembles Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? seems not to concern them in the slightest.
When John gives Mia an antique girl doll named Annabelle (no relation to the actress), neither of them notices its face is a mask of malevolence, like Bette Davis’ in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?”
The doll, which bears more than a casual resemblance to Bette Davis’s character in “What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?,” is creepily inanimate, and Leonetti uses it to good effect.
Directed by John R. Leonetti (cinematographer of " The Conjuring " and 2011's " Insidious ") with an accomplished zing for provoking a visceral aura of tension, "Annabelle" holds a modern relevance even as its period details and deliberate yet gripping pacing remind of Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby" and William Friedkin's "The Exorcist."
Filmmaker James Wan has graduated from “Saw” and “Insidious” and “The Conjuring” to the “Fast And Furious” franchise, leaving longtime cinematographer John Leonetti to step in – to very mixed results.
It is a prequel to last summer’s blockbuster hit “The Conjuring,” and while this installment isn’t directed by James Wan, it does follow his style he set forth in both that film and his “Insidious” movies.
It’s a shame that Leonetti doesn’t bother to carve out his own horror legacy, because everything from Insidious to The Conjuring is repurposed with only a few cheap scares in mind.
The film is directed by John R. Leonetti, a cinematographer and director who shot The Conjuring, Insidious, The Mask and I Know Who Killed Me.
Director John Leonetti, cinematographer for The Conjuring and the Insidious films, knows how to build tension.
While it's not completely fair to compare any movie to another, the parallels between “The Silence” and “ A Quiet Place ” are too prominent to ignore.
Like...isn’t this just A Quiet Place ?
It’s impossible to watch the film without thinking about John Krasinki’s A Quiet Place, last year’s sleeper hit.
Following the success of A Quiet Place and Netflix's own Bird Box , you would think the script for The Silence was written by the streaming giant's recommendation algorithm.
If the streaming service’s recent hit “ Bird Box ” seemed like an ocular companion to the aural deprivation of “ A Quiet Place ,” this new film feels like a de facto prequel, catching the apocalyptic moment when hordes of sound-sensitive creatures wipe out the bulk of humanity.
Yes, it's A Quiet Place meets Bird Box , but the real problem isn't that The Silence invites an easy comparison.
One such director is John R. Leonetti, a long-time cinematographer whose first gig was on the killer-doll sequel “Child’s Play 3.” He was also the cameraman for “The Conjuring,” the 2013 hit directed by doll aficionado James Wan (“Saw”).
Not only is the idea that the possession has something to do with the blood of a Manson-like cult member basically warmed over from 1991’s Child’s Play 3 (which Leonetti shot), but the whole thing is predicated on the idea that someone would actually have that doll in their house in the first place.
Wallis’ SAHM is Catherine Deneuve in “Repulsion” crossed with Mia Farrow in “Rosemary’s Baby”: a haunted beauty whose anxieties manifest themselves in the form of ghosts and ghouls.
Mortal Kombat II (2026)
Directed by Simon McQuoid
influenced by Mortal Kombat: Annihilation (1997)
Characters
…it didn’t minimize him or cartoonize as in 1997’s “Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.”
MK II is still a good Johnny Cage kick above Mortal Kombat: Annihilation…a realm no MK film wants to be in.
…followed by a 1997 sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, by John R. Leonetti.
Landing on the latter end of that scale was Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, an original attempt to make a live-action sequel in this franchise…
…the last time we got a Mortal Kombat II in theaters (folks of my generation can remember feeling ripped off when we saw Mortal Kombat: Annihilation)…
The same can't be said for its sequel, Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, which was so disastrous that almost none of the original cast returned.
I’ve been a sucker for creepy-doll flicks ever since that ventriloquists’ dummy from Magic put its unblinking spell on me back in 1978.
Horror movies being centered around possessed dolls are nothing new—in addition to "Child's Play," there's everything from the underrated Stuart Gordon shocker "Dolls" to the evil clown in "Poltergeist" to the Stephen King-penned episode of "The X-Files" to the insanely popular direct-to-video "Puppet Master" franchise (there have been ten movies).
There are unsubtle nods to Rosemary’s Baby, The Changeling et al, but for the most part it’s back to the de rigueur “quiet-quiet-quiet-BOO!” formula popularised to money-spinning effect by James Wan. Director John R Leonetti served as cinematographer on several of Wan’s films (including The Conjuring) so it’s no surprise that this looks much the same – although to be fair the scares are orchestrated with more flair than usual, even if the best of them are all spoiled in the trailer.
One such director is John R. Leonetti, a long-time cinematographer whose first gig was on the killer-doll sequel “Child’s Play 3.” He was also the cameraman for “The Conjuring,” the 2013 hit directed by doll aficionado James Wan (“Saw”).
While it’s possible that Annabelle might give a few audience members goose bumps, anyone who’s ever seen Rosemary’s Baby – or pretty much any film James Wan’s had a hand in since helming 2007’s Dead Silence, the Saw franchise excepted – will figure out what’s going on within the first 30 minutes.
Filmmaker James Wan has graduated from “Saw” and “Insidious” and “The Conjuring” to the “Fast And Furious” franchise, leaving longtime cinematographer John Leonetti to step in – to very mixed results.
“The Conjuring,” directed by “Saw” co-creator James Wan , was a classic.
While it’s possible that Annabelle might give a few audience members goose bumps, anyone who’s ever seen Rosemary’s Baby – or pretty much any film James Wan’s had a hand in since helming 2007’s Dead Silence, the Saw franchise excepted – will figure out what’s going on within the first 30 minutes.
But he’d been director of photography for James Wan since 2007’s Dead Silence, so it was a case of “just maybe.”
It's certainly not in the Chucky devil-doll class, or even close to producer James Wan's own Dead Silence.
Indeed, John R. Leonetti, a cinematographer with limited directing credits who worked closely with Wan in the past ( Dead Silence , Insidious ), doesn’t understand the building of dread, layer by layer.
How many shocks must the bright young California couple played by Annabelle Wallis and Ward Horton endure, first in a Santa Monica bungalow and then in a Pasadena apartment decorated to look like Isabella Rossellini's pad in "Blue Velvet," before they realize the doll on the shelf is the source of their problems?
Without revealing too much of "Annabelle" --- why spoil the film's surprises --- I can say that director John Leonetti and writer Gary Dauberman have borrowed liberally from past horror flicks like "The Ring", "The Exorcist", "Rosemary's Baby" and "Paranormal Activity".
After sitting through five Paranormal Activity movies, two Insidious pictures, The Possession, The Conjuring, and several others, the impact of these elements is pretty much gone - for me, at least.
At first, those episodic scares are fitting and tense – but after running hot in the beginning, somewhere around the midpoint the good ideas all burn up (with one or two exceptions) and we’re left with a lot of repetitive, half-cooked and clichéd scares (if you’ve seen Paranormal Activity, you’ve seen this).
Akin to the central problem with the Paranormal Activity franchise, Annabelle’s greatest drawback is that the limitations of the narrative and production wind up forcing the story to fall into a repetitious pattern with its sequences of scenes.