Annabelle: Creation is the fourth film in The Conjuring film
series after The Conjuring, Annabelle and The Conjuring 2. The film is a
prequel that focuses on the backstory behind the Annabelle doll.
Following the dud Annabelle of 3 years back and the not as
good as the first part Conjuring 2, there weren’t really high standards for
this one to meet.
The Mullins are a couple who have suffered a tragic loss of
their daughter. Fast forward 12 years, they have opened their home to a few orphan
girls and their caretaker Sister Charlotte. The girls have specific instructions to stay away from a particular room.
One girl is polio affected and feels lonely and decides to enter that room, she
then opens a closet to see the Annabelle doll and lets the evil break free.
WHAT’S GOOD
Annabelle: Creation is the first film where we see the
Annabelle doll in action. That doll is creepy enough with it's presence and it's blank stares, but here, it’s moving. (We have more reasons to fear the doll that we have been
conditioned to fear)
Horror doesn’t need a good script to survive… what most
people remember are the scares (we still remember the Spider walk scene right,
when someone says the word Exorcist) and Annabelle: Creation has them in
abundance.
Despite it being the same old cliché scares, the director has
been able to run a chill down his audiences' spines as……
It’s all about timing in horror films. The jump scares are
timed to perfection. They aren’t from out of the blue and leave us wondering as
to where did that come from. We are given cliché horror film hints that
something is about to happen. There is dead silence for a while. Then as when a
character looks into a mirror there is a slight flash in the reflection
accompanied with a musical note. The music then picks up, building a sense of
anticipation within you. The scare is delivered within time as just when you
are about to heave a sigh of relief the demonic entity pops up. The director builds that
feel of anxiety within the audience till the last possible second.
The stair lift angle is new and bone chilling.
The tempo of the music during the scary scenes was exceptional. It was playing in my
head during the interval (which greedy multiplex owners force into films
despite English films not being shot that way)
Talitha Bateman as Janice, is brilliant as the girl who is
isolated and has lost hope at the start of the film and as the possessed girl she becomes in the latter half.
Lulu Wilson as Linda has the best and most sensible scene in the
movie (and horror films of recent times) as when the doll is tossed into the well it begins pounding the grating. When Sister Charlotte asks her what is it. She delivers the best and
most sensible line ever seen in horror films, “Who cares? Run!”
This is the first attempt at universe building in a horror
film franchise. All of the Conjuring films have glimpses of the Annabelle doll
and this film offers a fleeting glimpse of The Nun (a character seen in The
Conjuring 2) in the photograph shown by Sister Charlotte to Mr Mullins. The spirit is
shown to be in black, but the hand of the nun who pushes Janice’s wheelchair
into the barn is white. (possible Valak appearance. They didn’t show the face)
WHAT’S BAD
The predictability. It’s always the weak one, who becomes the target of the demonic presence. The use of mirrors in horror films, we know that there will be something else reflected. It is used on two occasions in this film and we are literally waiting for the appearance as it is such a common scare in films.
There wasn’t much of dialogue among the characters, for them to observe a slow and gradual change after the demonic entity has taken a human form.
The scares are the same old fashioned ones. Doors slamming as the protagonist tries to get away from the demon, lights flickering, appearances in mirrors, the silences, etc.
It is a successful formula, as why would anyone move away from what is successful. There are no new experiments in this genre.
WHO SHOULD WATCH IT?
Horror buffs, as in no place I felt like laughing as if it
was a joke. Conjuring Universe fans should not avoid this.
Anyone who wants to get scared and experience a hair raising
fear with an impact that will leave your heart pounding.
As a horror film I was expecting to be freaked out from the
start, but then I remembered the titling of the film. It always first films in
the series that take time to establish the setting (I’ll take the example of
superhero films where characters are established in the first half of the first
movie and then the second half is where the action starts to pick up) That's exactly what happens here.
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