The summer
movie season is dying down and studios are throwing out a last ditch effort to
get that sweet summer box office money before the kids go back to school. This
is the time where you get the big studio comedies or horror films that are
aimed to make a killing among young audiences. Most of the time, they are
bottom of the barrel trash. But sometimes, you find a diamond in the rough.
Annabelle: Creation is that diamond in the rough and serves up some genuine and
gory scares that will leave audiences satisfied.
The fourth
installment in the ongoing Conjuring franchise, Annabelle: Creation also serves
as a prequel to the 2014 film, Annabelle. Former toy maker Sam Mullins (Anthony
LaPaglia) and his bed stricken wife Esther (Miranda Otto) are happy to welcome
a nun and six orphaned girls into their California farmhouse. Years earlier,
the couple lost their beloved 7-year-old daughter Annabelle in a horrific and tragic
car accident. Terror soon strikes when one of the girls finds a seemingly
innocent doll that seems to have a life of its own.
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| Wait a damn second! Did you say prequel to a prequel?! This is getting stupid! |
The primary strength of Annabelle: Creation is that it aims
to not only scare you but to make you care about the characters. Unlike the
first Annabelle movie, I actually can remember this characters and what their
motivations were. I actually felt something and actively worried for these
characters. And that’s the secret to a good film: the more you care, the more
invested you are in what happens next.
There are some interesting and scary set pieces in the
film but I found myself more interested in what was happening between the
characters. LaPaglia and Otto use their limited screen time to play their
characters with a sense of world-weariness and despair that lingers throughout
the frame anytime they are on screen. These are two broken people who take in
these girls to try and do the right thing. While the acting in the film is
especially great for a film like this, I was blown away by the work done by
Lulu Wilson and Tabitha Bateman. The friendship and relationship between this
two serves as the beating heart of the film and I was really impressed by their
range and depth. The work these two do is standout and I hope we get to see
more of them in the future.
The biggest issue I had with the film is ironically one of
its strengths. We have two very compelling sets of characters, the grieving
couple and the orphans, and while the script tries to give both of them a fair
shake but it does feel more like it is about the orphans. Sandberg and
Dauberman try to focus on both but it does seem that the film would be better
off focused on one of the other.
Grab your favorite doll and share this review!
Score
Liam S. O'Connor