Annabelle: Creation Is A Better Than Expected Fright-Fest

Though I've seen the two Conjuring movies, the original Annabelle from October 2014 is something my eyeballs have not witnessed, mostly because I heard only bad things about it and I wasn't as open to seeing horror fare on a regular basis theatrically as I am just three years later. As for the former detail, both film critics and audiences alike seemed to just not give much of a hoot about the movie once they saw it and if the director of Annabelle's follow-up feature Wish Upon is any indication of the quality seen there, well, I can understand the disdain. For the prequel Annabelle: Creation, director David F. Sandberg (director of Lights Out) is now at the helm and hey! Whaddya know, the movies actually some solid scary stuff!


Like all of these Conjuring movies, Annabelle: Creation is a period piece, this time going all the way back to 1955 to follow the plight of Janice (Talitha Bateman), a physically disabled orphaned young girl who is moving into a new house with nun Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) and a small group of fellow orphans, including her best pal Linda (Lulu Wilson). Their new surroundings are the home of the Mullins couple, though the girls only get to see the quiet and subdued Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPagila) since Esther Mullins (Miranda Otto) is permanently bedridden with a terrible disease.

Though Samuel Mullins comes off as creepy to the girls, they do begin to enjoy their new home well enough, though Janice soon finds herself in some trouble when she goes into a room Samuel Mullins explicitly forbid her from going into. This room happens to be where the Mullins now deceased daughter used to sleep and buried in the closet of this room is...a doll? Huh. Doesn't seem so scary right? Of course, we, the viewer, know there are some malicious happenings going on with this doll and soon the demon that's possessed the doll begins haunting Janice as it searches for a new host. Things only begin to get more terrifying for these various orphans as Janice begins to act quite strangely and even starts walking without crutches after an extensive encounter with a demon...

If Annabelle: Creation is a movie going through the motions in some respects, it's at least exhibiting some entertaining enough motions to forgive its more formulaic plot. You can totally see where the story is going in many key intervals, sure, but the way the movie actually gets to those specific story beats does unveil some moments of fun spookiness. Gary Dauberman's screenplay does a fine job of creating some distinctive scares and also incorporating a welcome recurring wry sense of humor (such as a shot of Linda protecting herself at night from demonic creatures with...a pop gun), it's so nice to see a modern horror movie that isn't afraid to incorporate the occasional dose of levity when the time is right. Director David F. Sandberg executes the scripts most inventive details with a welcome sense of panache.

Contrary to many horror sequels that just slap a bunch of lazy jump scares together with a brand name and call it a day, Annabelle: Creation actually does have some clever camera work that clearly demonstrates that actual thought was put into how to present certain scary scenes. I also like how a lot of the scares don't really call attention to themselves either, objects or people move in the background or there'll be a scarecrow rustling and you don't get loud sound effects or bombastic orchestral music cues to indicate their occurring. Subdued scares really get under one's skin, especially when they allow the protagonists not to realize what horrors are getting ready to pounce on them, that really does generate some cool suspense.

In terms of other aspects of the films scary sequences, Sandberg brings over the heavy use of creepy and effective sound-effects from his 2016 horror film Lights Out to good use and it's interesting, for better and for worse, that both his films heavily involve people with disabilities living with the pervasive negative presence of a demon. Speaking of the demon, I do wanna note that these Conjuring movies have gotta find a more imaginative look for the demons in their movies. They seem to be visually channeling classical artistic representations of what demons look like, but it just feels generic whenever these demons briefly come on-screen and sucks some potential horror out of the appearance of what are supposed to be monstrous creatures.

Similarly, though Dauberman's writing actually does a great job with the scares, I couldn't help but feel some key characters were thinly sketched. The friendship between Janice and Linda is well-handled, but Sister Charlotte, for instance, really has no personality to speak of while both of the Mullins have a potentially interesting plotline that sputters out with them becoming exposition devices and then abruptly leaving the feature. It's disappointing that Annabelle: Creation couldn't be more crafty with some of its more integral characters but at least this solid horror movie does deliver some well-done scares. It isn't exceptional or altogether too memorable but Annabelle: Creation should put some decent fright into night.