James Wan’s The Conjuring didn’t exactly break any cinematic boundaries, but by favouring old school camera techniques and setting itself in the 1970s, its harkening back to the likes of The Amityville Horror and The Exorcist made a welcome break for audiences tiring of blood baths and found footage films. It was a huge success, and David F. Sandberg’s Annabelle: Creation (two spooky early shorts by Sandberg are tucked away on the disc) is now the fourth film in a franchise that refuses to die.
For some, ever since the demonic doll first turned up in cameo in Wan’s original, this would be the instalment they’ve waited for. It begins with Annabelle’s creation in a cold open introducing us to Anthony LaPaglia’s dollmaker and his wife, living an idyllic rural existence with their seven-year-old daughter Bee – until she’s killed in a freak car accident. Twelve years later, the Mullins are finally attempting to put their grief behind them, opening their home to six young orphan girls under the charge of Sister Charlotte (Sigman). But the recovering polio victim Janice (Bateman) is very soon the target for a soul-seeking spirit living in a locked room that isn’t quite as inaccessible as Samuel Mullins had thought.
There’s not much here that’s original, but Annabelle: Creation succeeds by very carefully developing tension the old-fashioned way. The apprehension Sandberg builds across numerous languorous long lens shots with vital elements distinct but out of focus in the background is palpable. The other area in which he and script-writer Gary Dauberman (making up for Wolves at the Door) do well, is in the development of character, an area the original film also took its time with. Not that either movie is really character driven, nor indeed do we really get a great deal of empathy with the victims before the scary stuff kicks off, but by introducing us slowly and carefully to both the principals and their environment, we at least get a sense of who everybody is and what’s at stake before the phantasmagorics take over. It’s a lesson in making us care that low budget film-makers could learn from, with the series now passing box office takings of over $1b against budgets of less than a tenth of that.
If you’re an aficionado of this sort of thing, there will be nothing here to surprise you, but the mechanics of the movie will certainly entertain. And if you’re a casual horror film-goer this would, in spite of a tie-in sequence towards the end, be a great place to introduce yourself to the franchise. A lot of care and skill has gone into the making of this, and it’s all up there on the screen.
Special Features: Short films: Attic Panic and Coffer / The Conjuring Universe / Deleted scenes / Director’s commentary
ANNABELLE: CREATION / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: DAVID F. SANDBERG / SCREENPLAY: GARY DAUBERMAN / STARRING: TALITHA BATEMAN, LULU WILSON, STEPHANIE SIGMAN, ANTHONY LaPAGLIA, SAMARA LEE, MIRANDA OTTO / RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 4TH
