Movie Info
Movie Name: Annabelle: Creation
Studio: New Line Cinema/RatPac-Dune Entertainment/Atomic Monster
Genre(s): Horror
Release Date(s): June 19, 2017 (Los Angeles Film Festival)/August 11, 2017 (US)
MPAA Rating: R
Annabelle is up to her wacky supernatural horror again!
Tragedy strikes Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Esther (Miranda Otto) in 1943 when their daughter Annabelle “Bee” Mullins (Samara Lee) is killed in an accident. Twelve years later, a group of orphans and a nun named Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) have come to the Mullins country home to help them turn it into an orphanage. When an orphan named Janice (Talitha Bateman) begins seeing things in the Mullins’ home, her friend Linda (Lulu Wilson) realizes something is wrong with Janice and whatever has entered the Mullins’ home wants them dead.
Directed by David F. Sandberg, Annabelle: Creation is a supernatural horror movie. The film is a prequel to Annabelle from 2014 and a spin-off of The Conjuring series. The film was released to tepid reviews but a huge box-office return.
I’ll swallow your soul!
I thought Annabelle kind of missed the opportunity. It was a horror movie about a horrifying doll…and it just never lived up to the look and terror of a doll like Annabelle. I actually think Annabelle: Creation gets a little closer to hitting the target, but a garbled story continues to bring down the horror of Annabelle.
The movie makes the story unnecessarily complex. There is the demon, Annabelle the doll, Bee, and the disfigured mother. If feels like one or more of these plotlines should have been streamlined into the story and been the focus. Instead, you have a mess of horror that just seems to pile up. Just have Annabelle be the demon, or eliminate the demon all together…and the horrific mother (and the scarecrow) were just added confusion. Boil the movie down to either a demon story or a story about an evil doll…it doesn’t feel like it needs to be both.
The acting was pretty strong in the film. I liked Stephanie Sigman as the nun trapped in the situation and thought Talitha Bateman played a sympathetic victim of the demon. Lulu Wilson was good in Ouija: Origin of Evil and now has proven to be a young scream queen in this film. Anthony LaPaglia who is generally strong feels underused since he dips out of the film about half-way through.
Some people use the toilet or bucket when they vomit…Annabelle
The visuals for the movie are strong, but let down by the messiness of the story. I really enjoyed David F. Sandberg’s Lights Out and you can see where he brought a lot to the film from that movie (especially in the barn scene). I feel the horror was more physical and real in this movie than the previous entry, but it still wasn’t as terrifying as it could be.
Annabelle: Creation is part of a franchise that aspires and almost achieves. I think The Conjuring/Annabelle films have come really close to being modern horror “classics”, but ultimate fall short because they can’t get the balance between innovation and jumps leading to film that are poorly constructed. The film does wrap back around and lead into the first Annabelle film in the end and also sets up the next franchise spin-off The Nun (from The Conjuring 2) scheduled released in 2018.
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