Starring Anthony LaPaglia, Talitha Bateman & Stephanie Sigman
Directed by David F. Sandberg
R
In theaters Aug. 11, 2017
The demonic backstory to the evil plaything that inspired The Conjuring and later got its own spin-off, Annabelle: Creation effectively fulfills horror fans’ need to be scared—and reminds us of just how creepy dolls can be.
In the opening credits, we watch in the 1950s as a toymaker (Anthony LaPaglia, best known for playing Jack Malone on TV’s Without a Trace) carefully puts the finishing touches on the doll that will become Annabelle, a gift for his young daughter, Bee.
Bee is struck by a car in the very next scene and killed.
Then, 12 years later, the heartbroken toymaker and his mysteriously bedridden wife (Mirando Otto, Rebecca Ingram from 24: Legacy) open their home to a group of orphan girls and a young Catholic nun, Sister Catherine (Stephanie Sigman).
The girls are told they can freely go anywhere in the house, except for one place—Bee’s old bedroom, which is always locked.
Swedish director David F. Sandberg, whose resume includes last year’s horror flick Lights Out, doesn’t really do anything flashy or new. But he certainly knows how to solidly ramp up the suspense, and once he turns on the jolt juice, it really starts to flow.
The setting of a big, rambling, Victorian-style farmhouse, on a desolate hilltop in the middle of nowhere (actually, Southern California) makes a great place for the spooky shenanigans. Sandberg keeps gore—and slaughter—to a minimum, especially for an R-rated flick, and gets maximum value out of things that are only glimpsed briefly, seen in the shadows or stirred in the darkness of the imagination.
That’s not to say you won’t see some things that will make you gasp, and if you come to see bodies torn apart, walls smeared with blood and eye sockets missing eyeballs, well, you won’t be disappointed.
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