If the world is going to be saddled with a prequel to a spinoff of an underwhelming horror franchise, it could have turned out much, much worse than Annabelle: Creation. The first Annabelle feature presented the acutely unnecessary backstory to the prologue of 2013's The Conjuring. The first film was, frankly, dreadful: a muddled slog that proved both devoid of scares. Annabelle: Creation benefits immeasurably from a superior cast, setting, and production values, as well as from David F. Sandberg (Lights Out), who takes over directing duties.
The best way to approach the new film is to disregard its predecessors and just revel in the execution of its top-notch fun house scares. The plot in Annabelle: Creation is hardly original—it mashes up Child’s Play with countless haunted house and demon possession stories—and, as with most contemporary horror features, that plot largely depends on characters making foolish decisions. The film is blessed, however, with a pair of credible, charismatic child actors as de facto leads (Talitha Bateman and Lulu Wilson), as well as a killer setting: a doll-maker's musty, sprawling farmhouse, nestled in the scrubby hills of 1950s Southern California.
Sandberg isn’t especially interested in weaving his film into a broader mythology, an unnecessary coda and a couple of forced Conjuring references notwithstanding. Annabelle: Creation is foremost a delivery system for dusty “Steinbeck Gothic” atmospherics and predictable yet devilishly fun jump scares. On that score, it’s a virtually nonstop pleasure. Sandberg tosses one frightening set piece after another at the viewer, without allowing little details like logic and story to get in the way. Given how downright entertaining the film turns out to be—PG-13 scary at first, then ghoulishly R-rated—it seems pointlessly sour to gripe that the titular evil doll’s actions don’t make much sense.
Opens Friday, August 11 in wide release.
