You can’t keep an evil doll down, and this means a third chapter in the Annabelle franchise via 2019’s Annabelle Comes Home. Since 2017’s Annabelle: Creation offered a prequel, Home actually offers the series’ first sequel.

Though the franchise follows an odd chronology. 2014’s Annabelle acted as a prequel to 2013’s The Conjuring, so as I noted in its review, Creation gave us a prequel to a prequel.

Comes Home takes place in 1972, a year after the first Conjuring but five years prior to Conjuring 2. Cue Chandler Bing voice: could this series’ chronology be any more confusing?

Demonologists Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) take the possessed Annabelle doll and lock it in their secure “artifact room” for safekeeping. They hope this will prevent more mayhem.

Inevitably, this plans fails and Annabelle escapes from her prison. In the Warren house, she finds three new targets for her evil shenanigans: Ed and Lorraine’s 10-year-old daughter Judy (Mckenna Grace) as well as her teen babysitters Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman) and Daniela (Katie Sarife).

I admit that I enter 21st century horror films with low expectations, as too many substitute cheap jump scares for real terror. Actually, I shouldn’t solely criticize modern horror for those traits, as they go back a long way, but they seem more dominant than in the past.

Because it offered a moody experience, I liked the first Annabelle more than most of its brethren. Unfortunately, Creation regressed to the mean and lacked much impact, and Home fails to right that particular ship.

Toothless and dull, Home suffers most from an utter lack of real drama. At no point during the film do we actually fear for the well-being of the characters.

Some of that occurs because we don’t invest much emotion into the roles. Though top-billed, Ed and Lorraine spend relatively little time on-screen, so the film concentrates mainly on Judy and the teen babysitters.

These characters seem pretty bland, though Grace brings some depth to her underwritten role. She gives Judy a nice haunted quality that works for the part.

Still, I don’t really worry about Judy or the others. As I noted, we never sense any real threat to any of them, as the supposed horror that surrounds them feels more like theme park nonsense than real terror.

To some degree, Home attempts psychological horror, as we see how the characters’ internal fears become their biggest obstacle. Unfortunately, the film doesn’t make these issues especially scary, so we don’t get much impact.

This means a lot of the movie passes without any real action, as characters tend to stand around and look frightened. Every once in a while, it tosses a jump scare our way, and then it goes right back to the same tedium.

Honestly, this feels like a lazy excuse for a sequel. We don’t get any real inspiration on display, so we end up with a slow tale that lacks purpose or drama.

Annabelle Comes Home appears in an aspect ratio of 2.40:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. As expected, the movie presented strong visuals.

Across the board, definition seemed good. Even with a mix of low-light sequences, the film appeared accurate and concise, as only a smidgen of slightly soft shots emerged.

Jagged edges and moiré effects didn’t mar the presentation, and I saw no edge haloes. Print flaws also failed to appear.

In terms of palette, Home went with a standard orange/amber and teal orientation. Within stylistic choices, the hues seemed well-depicted.

Blacks were dark and dense, and shadows gave us good clarity. I felt pleased with this transfer.

As for the Dolby Atmos audio, it offered a mostly typical horror movie soundscape. Downconverted to Dolby TrueHD 7.1, this meant a fair amount of creepy atmosphere and occasional “jolt moments”.

Along with good stereo music, the soundfield was able to open things up in a satisfying manner that embellished the story. We got a nice sense of various elements along with a useful sense of the spooky bits, some of which worked really well.

Audio quality was always good. Music appeared full and rich, while effects demonstrated nice clarity and accuracy. Low-end appeared deep and rich.

Speech was natural and distinctive throughout the film. The mix used the speakers well and created a fine sense of the material.

Under Behind the Scenes, we get a three-part collection of featurettes that span a total of 11 minutes, 22 seconds. Across these, we hear from special effects makeup artists Gage Munster and Chris Hampton, writer/director Gary Dauberman, costume designer Leah Butler, makeup department head Eleanor Sabaduquia, production designer Jennifer Spence, producer James Wan, and actors Alexander Ward, Natalia Safran, and Michael Cimino.

“Scenes” looks at the design and creation of various “monsters”. Though the clips don’t last long, they offer some good details.

With The Artifact Room and the Occult, we locate a five-minute, seven-second piece with Dauberman, Wan, Spence, doll wrangler Tim Leach, prop master Thomas Spence, Ed and Lorraine Warren’s daughter Judy Spera and son-in-law Tony Spera, and producer Peter Safran.

Here we get notes about the memorabilia in the movie’s “Artifact Room”. Like “Scenes”, a few useful insights result.

Next comes The Light and the Love, a four-minute, 26-second reel that features Wan, Dauberman, and actors Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga. “Love” looks at the Warren characters and the actors’ performances. It tends to feel fluffy.

Seven Deleted Scenes fill a total of 11 minutes, 28 seconds. Some offer more character information, while the rest focus on broader scares and background for the artifacts. A few of the latter offer some value, but overall, the deleted scenes seem forgettable.

The disc opens with ads for Doctor Sleep and It: Chapter 2. No trailer for Home appears here.

A second disc provides a DVD copy of Home. It includes one of the three “Behind the Scenes” featurettes but lacks all the other extras.

A fairly limp sequel, Annabelle Comes Home lacks originality or menace. It plods through a series of banal threats without any impact. The Blu-ray brings very good picture and audio along with minor supplements. The Annabelle series started pretty well but it plods along at this point.