Review of Annabelle: Creation (2017) by Wayne K — 26 Sep 2018

The rare occasion of a prequel being better than the film it's setting up, even if that wasn't too hard of a task, Annabelle: Creation is a fictionalised account of the making of the titular doll.

The problem is, Annabelle is a Raggedy Ann doll, not porcelain, so it's a story about a person making a haunted doll which doesn't at all resemble the doll the story is based on. Aside from this dodgy premise, the film is actually pretty good.

It does a much better job building suspense and apprehension than Annabelle, and a few of the scenes are legitimately scary. But almost as if to balance out the quality, it still finds time to throw in the typical genre tropes.

Of course, door-based scares are prevalent, but we also have the horror flick trifecta of characters making stupid decisions, never offering sufficient explanations and not understanding the value of running away from something which is obviously evil.

It lets itself down too often to come close to the original Conjuring, but it still manages to generate enough spookiness to far surpass the film it sets up.