Cineast Movie Previews: 'Left Behind,' 'Annabelle,' 'Inner Demons'
Before heading to the movie theater, check out Cineast each week for new film previews and trailer. This week, Cineast takes a look at Left Behind, Annabelle and Inner Demons.
Left Behind
Left Behind. At last, a film that tries to answer the eternal question: what happens if you’re flying on a jet and all of a sudden a good chunk of humanity gets raptured? By raptured, I of course mean taken straight to Heaven without any preliminaries—that is, now you see them, now you don’t, and all that’s left is the clothes they were wearing. (That’s right, the clothes get “left behind,” too—because who needs clothes in Heaven? Incidentally, it’s another good reason to always wear clean underwear—you never know when you might get raptured.) Since most people find the idea of a rapture actually happening pretty far-fetched, Left Behind spends most of its time pretending to be an airliner disaster film, showing heroic pilot Rayford Steele (Nicolas Cage) dealing with the problem of having his co-pilot disappear (raptured), having his air traffic controllers go silent (raptured) and managing his frantic remaining passengers (those who have not been raptured). From a popular series of books.
Annabelle
From the creepy doll school of horror film comes Annabelle. A husband buys an antique doll for his expectant wife, thinking it will be the perfect thing. Of course, despite its sickly-sweet smile, the doll is pretty creepy right from the get-go. Then, of course, the doll comes under the power of a satanic cult that opens a conduit into all that is evil through it—this happens when a possessed woman dies while holding the doll, bleeding onto it (long story). Nice dolly? Somehow, the young couple, now with newborn baby in tow, decides to hold onto the doll, and decide to use it to decorate the nursery. Both of these decisions that will cause theater audiences everywhere to shout, “What the hell are you thinking?” at the screen, of course to no avail. All that has to happen after that is for hubby to go off on a business trip, which he will do; just you wait, leaving the vulnerable wife and child at the mercy of the Devil.
Inner Demons
Talk about getting busted for possession. In Inner Demons, a young girl—formerly an A-student—is sent by her religious parents into rehab for heroin addiction. Only it turns out, after she’s off the juice, that the girl is actually possessed by demons. In fact, she has been possessed for a while, and the heroin was her way of suppressing the demons. This sounds like a classic B-movie horror scenario, combining the titillation of illicit drugs, the mockery of overt religiosity, and the spectacle of demonic possession. We can only hope that the filmmakers have enough sense to throw some good laughs in with all of the shrieking.