The Creation of a More Sinister Prequel
I think I agree with many other reviewers who say that you should completely forget about 2014’s Annabelle and only regard this as a prequel that lives up to the terror and conviction of The Conjuring. While it’s of course no perfect horror, it’s one of the better ghost flicks of the past few years among the rip-offs, remakes and endless sequels we’ve had to put up with.
Revisiting the scary little Annabelle doll collected by Ed and Lorraine Warren, the real-life couple who serve as the two stars of the Conjuring film series, this story takes us deep into the lonesome, quiet hills of Southern California in the early 1960s, setting the atmosphere and tone for a retro ghost film, and actually doing very well in working on building up the characters very early on in the story, something that most horror films unfortunately miss out on.
But in this film, the most disappointing thing is that there is what people may write off as ‘suspense’, but in reality it is simply a dragging, boring note the filmmakers keep stringing along in order to fill the gap between gothic gore and jump scares. Not to discredit the moments of terror and panic at all – this film is very dark, and in the most confronting moments, the director hasn’t held back the raw violence and fear that was building up in California in the 1960s and eventually culminated in the gory reveal of the Manson Family (remember the shocking events of the opening of the 2014 film?). This film’s plot is relatively simple, so it attempts to scare and surprise viewers with twists of visual horror and a chilling score, and let’s not forget the crackly old feel-good song that keeps repeating on the record player in the most frightening scenes!
This film easily beats some of the recent supernatural films we’ve had over the past couple of years, including Insidious: Chapter 3, the the Poltergeist remake and Curse of Chucky. These are all films I really just want to forget.
But Annabelle: Creation? I think I’ll remember this one for a long time.