Yet another tiresome film in the formulaic and metastasising devil-doll horror franchise that started with The Conjuring and its sequel The Conjuring 2, notionally inspired by real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. Annabelle: Creation is, heartsinkingly, a prequel to the prequel that was Annabelle (2014), which gave the glassy-eyed Victorian doll from The Conjuring its own backstory.
Now we are back in some sub-Little-House-on-the-Demonic-Prairie era, with Anthony LaPaglia playing Mr Samuel Mullins, a doll-maker in a huge house in the midwestern middle of nowhere. It’s a profession that he makes as utterly silly and unbelievable as it sounds.
Miranda Otto is stuck with the role of simpering wife and mom to their little girl who meets a tragic accident, and whose tormented spirit is hijacked by the devil who uses one of the dolls to get a foothold on earth. Then the house gets used as an orphanage for girls for all ages. It’s the same old jump scares, the same old deafening audio stabs – the same old cliches and dull, lazy secondhand ideas.
