Annabelle: Frightening but forgettable
ANNABELLE: CREATION Direction: David F Sandberg Actors: Talitha Bateman, Anthony LaPaglia Rating:
She’s back. The demonic doll from the standalone 2014 feature, Annabelle, returns to wreak havoc in this formulaic prequel.
As the title suggests, this time you also learn how the infamous ‘plaything’ came into being.
Devastated by the death of their beloved seven-year-old daughter, a doll-maker and his wife (Anthony LaPaglia – Miranda Otto) allow a group of orphan girls and their guardian nun (Stephanie Sigman) to live at their farmhouse. The children have the run of their new abode but have been forbidden to enter the deceased girl’s bedroom.
Before you can say ‘Boo’, one of the younger orphans has done just that, setting the stage for a series of increasingly terrifying events.
Taking the reins from John R Leonetti, director David F Sandberg (Lights Out) serves up plenty of religious mumbo-jumbo, amped-up sound effects and other hoary horror movie tropes — flickering light bulbs, creaky doors and other jump-scares.
The preposterous climax ensures that the malevolent doll can strike again in the near future. Talitha Bateman is effective as the possessed, polio-afflicted orphan, but the rest of the performances are uniformly forgettable. As, indeed, is Annabelle: Creation.