Exploring The Afterlife in Dungeons & Dragons

Image by Nanne Tiggelman from Pixabay

Complementing my thoughts on resurrection in a fantasy setting from back in January, the excellent YouTuber DnDHunter has just released an inciteful 15-minute video on what happens to characters that die in the 'official' Dungeons & Dragons mythologies.

Annabelle Comes Home (2019)

Annabelle Comes Home is a masterclass in teen horror movie making.

While, on one hand, not much scarier than the best episodes of Supernatural, nor even as gory, on the other writer/director Gary Dauberman concentrated on escalating tension, menace, and atmosphere.

You always suspected a jump scare was coming, but, in truth, there were only a couple in the film, the majority were red herrings, but you never know which were which until the final 'boo!'.

The film opens with the backstory of how Annabelle came into the possession of The Conjuring's protagonists, Lorraine and Ed Warren (Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson) and a succinct explanation of the doll's powers (she isn't possessed, as demons don't possess objects, instead she acts as a beacon and a conduit for dark forces).

Then the story jumps forward a year, to 1972, and Annabelle is safely squirrelled away in the Warrens' locked room of evil artifacts.

The Warrens are heading out on another case, leaving their young daughter Judy (Mckenna Grace) in the care of Brady Bunch-like babysitter Mary Ellen (Madison Iseman).

At first I felt a bit cheated when I realised that the Warrens themselves would just be bookending the story of Annabelle Comes Home, but as it turns out I should have trusted Gary Dauberman to know what he was doing.

Having learned what the Warrens do for a living, Mary Ellen's best friend, Daniela Rios (Katie Sarife) drops in to surreptitiously check out the "room of cursed objects".

She is wracked with guilt over the recent death of her father, and is hoping to find a way to contact his spirit.

Instead, she is tricked into releasing Annabelle, who, in turn, unleashes as many of the trapped entities in the Warrens' secure room as she can.

The variety of spooky objects that come into play reminded me of a cross between the Friday the 13th TV series (nothing to do with Jason Voorhees) and the wonderful Warehouse 13, with the predictive television set being a particular visual highlight.

The climax, which draws in May Ellen's would-be boyfriend, Bob Palmeri (Michael Cimino), is a funfair thrill ride of spooks, monsters, and mind-trickery as a demon uses Annabelle to try and steal one of the young women's souls.

Ultimately, Annabelle Comes Home is Buffy The Vampire Slayer level teen drama and urban fantasy scares, but on a bigger budget, with enough atmosphere and misdirection to keep the audience on the edge of its seat throughout.

As always with this franchise, the film capitalises on its period setting to heighten the verisimilitude, making the jeopardy and threat wholly convincing for both the audience and the teenagers trapped inside the haunted house.

Balancing out the jump scares, there's also some laugh out loud moments, and Dauberman has a great knack of making full use of the screen, so you always have to keep half-an-eye on what's going on in the background.

Beyond question, Annabelle Comes Home is delightfully creepy and simultaneously thrilling and unnerving, making it one of my favourite entries in the ever-expanding Conjuring Universe.

While Universal may have failed to launch its Dark Universe, reinventing their classic characters for 21st Century audiences, Warner Bros and New Line Cinema were quietly building an impressive, interconnected, universe around the mythology of The Conjuring movies.

They're not all hits, but the winners outweigh the duds. Long may it last.

Annabelle - Creation (2017)

It's the little things that can make a good movie.

During the first act of Annabelle: Creation, before the expected ghostly horrors begin, Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) is sharing a photograph of her fellow nuns and, at one point, she tilts it at a certain angle and, briefly, a face appears in the shadows of the picture, lenticular-like: it's Valak (from The Nun and The Conjuring 2).

It's never mentioned again, never referenced, but it's a marvellous Easter Egg tying this film - beyond the presence of its titular antagonist - to the wider Conjuring Universe.

Director David F Sandberg (who also directed Shazam!) makes great use of light and shadows in this creative origin story for the demonic doll, Annabelle, that far exceeds her disappointing first 'solo' film for scares and coherence.

Written by Gary Dauberman (who was also responsible for Annabelle, Annabelle Comes Home, The Nun, IT: Chapter Two, and developing Swamp Thing for DC Universe), Annabelle: Creation sees melancholic, former toy maker, Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his bed-bound wife, Esther (Miranda Otto), opening their isolated home to Sister Charlotte and half-a-dozen orphan girls.

Twelve years earlier, in the mid 1940s, their young daughter, Annabelle (Samara Lee) had been run over and killed, and despite the generous nature of Mr Mullins, there's a definite creepy cloud of gloom hanging over the house.

Exploring a room in the house she was forbidden to enter, one girl, Janice (Talitha Bateman) is attacked in the night by some kind of demonic entity. Already hobbled by polio, this attack leaves her in a wheelchair, and the other girls start to believe her stories of 'ghosts', especially when Janice's behaviour takes a turn for the worse.

Although the climax of the main plot is slightly jumbled, even feeling a bit rushed, overall Annabelle: Creation is tightly scripted and delivers on most counts.

For the most part it avoids cheap jump scares, and instead oozes unnerving, "it's behind you", tension and atmosphere.

Taking a lesson from the first Annabelle flick, director David Sandberg doesn't dwell too long on the static doll, instead drawing the story's terror from what goes on around her.

The all-important "creation" of the central demonic doll is surprisingly interesting and clever (although I don't understand why no one ever suggested pouring a can of petrol over the doll and setting it alight, especially once it became clear how evil it was).

Towards the end of the film there's a nice nod to the "real Annabelle doll" in a sequence that dovetails neatly into the first Annabelle movie.

Besides the fantastic Easter Eggs, a strength of many of The Conjuring Universe movies has been their period settings, and that's ever-prevalent in Annabelle: Creation, with its story eventually spanning spanning three decades.

And, I know I came to this franchise late, but I love the way it really is a "cinematic universe" - in the style of the Marvel movies - with its stories not focusing on a single demonic entity or ghostly group simply repeating the same narrative over and over through unending sequels of ever-decreasing quality and budget.

Annabelle (2014)

In late '60s suburbia, ultra-square couple doctor John Form (Ward Horton) and his doll collector wife Mia (Annabelle Wallis) are expecting their first child.

John presents Mia with a vintage porcelain doll we shall call Annabelle for the sake of expediency (even though no name is actually used for the doll in the film).

Soon after this, their neighbour's house, and then their own, is attacked by a pair of crazed Satanic cultists, the female being shot dead by police while clutching the doll we now call Annabelle.

Mia begins to think their house is cursed, a belief given strength by a fire that nearly claims her life, but does lead to the birth of their child, Lia.

The family relocates to an apartment building, but the demonic forces follow them and Mia finds herself hounded by an assortment of evil creatures.

All the time, they are being watched by Annabelle; even though John had thrown her in the trash before the fire gutted their first home, she finds her way into their belongings when they move house.

Annabelle is a prequel to The Conjuring, supposedly fleshing out the backstory of the haunted doll, but really only cobbling together a story to explain how she got into the hands of the nurses who appear in the opening sequence of The Conjuring.

Unfortunately, this early expansion of The Conjuring Universe isn't written or directed by anyone connected with the original movie, and lacking the presence of the Warrens or analogues, Annabelle is a much more mundane and mainstream horror movie.

The film's problems are compounded by the fact that while the demonic entities in the actual Conjuring movies obey a kind of logic that makes them convincing in the context, Gary Dauberman's script - under the direction of John R. Leonetti - for Annabelle just throws special effects-heavy creatures at our protagonists on a whim.

While frequently dipping into the same well of horror movie clichés, Annabelle lacks the internal consistency and strong characters of The Conjuring.

Instead, it's a hodgepodge of ideas, with allusions to the Manson Family murders (the film starts with the trial of The Family as a backdrop), and stereotypical Hollywood black magic and Satanism, mixed in with The Conjuring's take on ghosts and demons, all somehow tied in to this evil doll.

And what can be said of the demonic doll herself? Well, firstly, mint, straight-out-of-the-box, she's a frakking evil looking creation so I can't understand why any sane person would want her in the house in the first place.

But, secondly, even once she starts acting as a conduit for dark forces, she actually does very little.

If she moves at all it's off-screen. In fact, for the longest time she's not even on screen, and her connection to the various ghosts and monsters that appear seems tenuous at best.

Imagine if Chucky had never actually moved during Child's Play and you'll get some idea how naff the doll is as a source of jeopardy.

Although she looks terrifying, she's a lot more effective as a tool of menace when people are talking about her than when we actually see her... doing nothing.

As much as I welcome the idea of a shared universe for The Conjuring franchise, Annabelle really adds very little to the joint mythology.

The film's almost like a self-contained horror movie that was tacked on to The Conjuring bandwagon as an afterthought. 

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021)

It's 1981, Brookfield, Connecticut, and the Warrens - Ed (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) - are attending the violent exorcism of eight-year-old David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard), who has seemingly been possessed by a demonic waterbed (I kid you not).

In the process, Ed suffers a heart attack as he sees the entity jump into Arne Johnson (Ruairi O'Connor), the boyfriend of David's older sister, Debbie (Sarah Catherine Hook).

A month later, Ed wakes up in hospital, croaking out to Lorraine that he saw Arne get taken over.

Unfortunately, just as this is going on, Arne is in the process of stabbing to death his drunk landlord Bruno Sauls (Ronnie Gene Blevins) then wandering off in a trance.

Arne is arrested and charged with murder, however Ed and Lorraine are determined to prove to the court, in his defence, that Arne was "demonically possessed".

This sets in motion a supernatural procedural, where Ed and Lorraine head round the country, following clues to prove their claims.

Having found a "Satanic totem" under the Glatzel's house, Ed and Lorraine are directed to a retired priest, Kastner (Fringe's ever-wonderful John Noble), who believes the totem was deliberately placed there by the Disciples of The Ram cult (which also has connections to the Annabelle doll, although sadly this wasn't explored) to sow chaos.

The Warrens also note similarities between their "case" and that of a murdered girl and her missing friend in Danvers, Massachusetts. Lorraine manages to crack the case wide open for the sceptical police with her "mystical abilities", earning the trust of Sergeant Clay (Keith Arthur Bolden), who grants them access to the official files on the murder.

This sends them deeper into supernatural territory and the couple's first encounter with the all-too-human, chaotic evil Satanist called The Occultist (Eugenie Bondurant).

I like that scriptwriter David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick was trying something different with The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, rather than the expected haunted house horror of the previous two chapters in this franchise.

However, I don't feel it worked as well. While overall the film was a fun horror flick, the trail of mystical clues seemed a bit preposterous and Lorraine's supernatural abilities rather fortuitous and fool proof.

Part of my problem with this movie, unfortunately, comes down to my continued distain for the fact that real-life snake oil salesmen are being sold to a gullible public as genuine paranormal superheroes.

The first act of The Devil Made Me Do It appears to stick closest to the reality of events (with added demons and magic, of course), but the rest is just Hollywood bullshit.

In the real world the judge very promptly threw out the whole "the devil made me do it" defence by Arne's lawyer, as it had no grounding in law and was unprovable.

As acknowledged briefly at the end of the film, Arne was sentenced to 10–20 years in prison for first-degree manslaughter (of which he served about five years).

It's a pity more of the movie didn't focus on the proceedings of the case - but then facts would have got in the way of a good story.

Of course, that didn't stop a certain pair of publicity hounds cashing in on all this nationwide news coverage, eventually writing a book about the case.

I'm sure that's what put me off watching this most recent entry in the Warren strand of The Conjuring Universe for so long.

Just because a film says it's "based on true events" doesn't mean it's true. For instance, just because it depicts an exorcism that really took place doesn't mean demons, ghosts, black magic et al actually exist.

As charismatic as Wilson and Farmiga are as the Warrens, I can't help but feel, personally, that I'd enjoy these particular tales with wholly fictional participants, so the clash of crass reality and glossy fantasy wasn't so distracting.

All that aside, like other entries in the Conjuring Universe, The Devil Made Me Do It is really well-made and, under the steady hand of director Michael Chaves, it rattles through its 112-minute runtime without any bloat.

Emerald Gordon Wulf: Now this is real!

The unsung hero, though, of The Devil Made Me Do It is the incredible contortionist Emerald Gordon Wulf, who doubled for David Glatzel during the exorcism scene and pulled off some unbelievably terrifying physical twists and turns that should have won her an Oscar for those moments alone.

These physical portrayals of the horrors of demonic possession - rather than using elastic CGI - make those scenes so much more impactful and were certainly the stand-out action beats of the movie.

By the look of things, the next - and final - Warren-centric Conjuring film (Last Rites) is reverting to the more traditional haunted house format, as the self-proclaimed "demonologists" take on the Smurl haunting.

So, that's good news.

The Conjuring (2013)

As promised, I have begun my trawl through the murky world of The Conjuring Universe, kicking off with the titular movie that started it all back in 2013.

Showcasing what it is claimed to be the most shocking case investigated by professional 'demonologists' Lorraine (Vera Farmiga) and Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson), The Conjuring focuses primarily on a working class family, the Perrons, who invest all their money in a dream house in the country only to find they are sharing it with a malevolent demonic entity.

It's all very formulaic stuff (supernatural shit happens to family, family suffers, family calls in experts, supernatural shit escalates, experts drive it out at the last moment) that we've seen a million times before, from The Haunting to Poltergeist and beyond.

The set-up is little different to the many variations on the tired Amityville story and any number of other 'haunted house' tales that don't make bogus claims of being based on "real events".

That said, The Conjuring is very well made (and gets very LOUD during it climactic demonic confrontation), has charismatic leads in Wilson and Bates Motel's Farmiga, and is already laying the groundwork for a wider "universe" by the very nature of its main characters having a plentiful casebook of adventures to explore.

Being set in the '70s gives The Conjuring a nice period feel as well, and the roleplayers among us appreciate the Warrens methodical approach to their job, coming as it does straight out of the Call Of Cthulhu playbook.

But what really makes this an interesting movie is the sequence where the demonic force the Warrens are facing in the Perron's house uses a connection to Lorraine to 'activate' a totally unrelated entity back in the Warren's home - in their room of artefacts - the infamous Annabelle doll (whose story helps establish the Warren's bona fides at the start of The Conjuring).

In truth, this sub-plot has almost no bearing whatsoever on the main narrative, but provides a unique distraction the like of which I don't recall seeing in previous genre pieces of this ilk.

While the real Warrens were charlatans and con artists (or worst), the fictional Ed and Lorraine, because they exist in a cinematic universe where demons, ghosts, black magic etc are real, are true defenders of humanity worthy of joining the ranks of comic books' John Constantine and TV's Winchester brothers (from Supernatural).

I'd give The Conjuring a solid seven out of ten. It's not original by any stretch of the imagination, but it has some interesting moments, and by taking seriously the fantastical fabrications of the Warrens director James 'Aquaman' Wan and writers Chad Hayes and Carey W Hayes have tapped into a rich seam of stories and created an intriguing cinematic world that has the legs to expand beyond a single movie.

If Superheroes Can Share Universes, Why Not Horror Films?

Conjuring Universe graphic by Jarvisrama99

The idea of a "shared horror universe" may have faltered with Universal's Dark Universe, but that approached the scenario from the wrong direction (establishing that there was a 'shared universe' then expecting audiences to automatically care).

The Conjuring franchise, on the other hand, popped out sequels, prequels, and spin-offs at a steady rate for several years - which people are obviously grokking - so confirming a "shared universe" was the next logical step.

I'll confess that for the longest time I'd never given them the time of day because I have problems with lauding real-life charlatans (Ed and Lorraine Warren) as 'heroes' in the fight against the (fictional) supernatural or giving credence to nonsense like the so-called Enfield Haunting.

It's one thing to enjoy the world of ghosts and ghoulies as the make-believe thrill-rides that good horror stories are, but when you start preying on the gullible and telling them this balloon juice is real then I have problems.

That's not to say I wouldn't relish really living in a world of "gods and monsters" (although I'd take "comic book superheroes" first if there's a choice), but I know they're just stories.

Mini-rant aside, this featurette promoting The Nun and - by extension - The Conjuring Universe, has actually piqued my interest in these movies, so I plan to revisit the ones I have on my shelf and give them a spin.

NB. The cinematic Warrens' arc (Phase One, to borrow MCU nomenclature?) supposedly wraps up in September's The Conjuring: Last Rites, but let's hope The Conjuring Universe continues with more monster-centric spin-offs and perhaps some new "heroes" coming to the fore.