RECENT WATCHES: Annabelle: Creation (2017)

The first "Annabelle" movie made a boatload of money at the price of being a rushed-out cheapie made mostly to cash in on the success of the movie that preceded it. If the Conjuring Universe was going to actually have any legs – and New Line Cinema needed it to have legs, having already greenlit more spin-offs – they would have to do better than that. Swedish filmmaker David F. Sandberg got his start making clever horror shorts in his house and posting them on YouTube. One called "Lights Out" went viral in 2014, catching the attention of James Wan. Wan produced the feature adaptation of "Lights Out" in 2016 and was clearly impressed with Sandberg's work. When offered "Annabelle: Creation," the director almost turned it down, not interested in doing a sequel. Upon realizing he would be given a lot of free reign on the project, Sandberg signed up. In other words, everyone realized the first "Annabelle" was mediocre at best, declared a Mulligan, and decided to make a prequel to the prequel. As if to say "Here's the actual "Annabelle" movie." The resulting film is maybe the best reviewed entry in the extended "Conjuring" endeavor, suggesting this was the right approach. 

In 1945, dollmaker Samuel Mullins lived with his wife Esther and their beloved seven year old daughter, Annabelle, in rural California. When Annabelle is killed in a car accident, the couple is left heartbroken. 12 years later, the Mullins agree to take in half a dozen orphans and their nun caretaker. Among the girls are sisters, Janice and Linda. Disabled from polio, Janice is an outcast among the girls. She explores the house at night and comes across a locked room, occupied only by a doll in the likeness of the Mullins' late daughter. Janice has unknowingly unleashed a supernatural force that will not rest until it has consumed her very soul. Linda tries to save her sister as the dark secrets of the home and family are revealed. 

There's a key moment in "Annabelle: Creation." Two of the girls, not quite teenagers but not little kids anymore either, hide under a blanket in their bedroom. They invent a ghost story on the spot, about Mr. Mullins' reclusive wife. It starts out as a game but, as noises are heard outside the barrier, the two youngsters have successfully talked each other into being scared. The audience is drawn in as well, the sequence climaxing with an effective scare of an eerie face pressing through the blanket. This is exactly the kind of ambiance "Annabelle: Creation" sets out to capture, of a ghost story whispered about among giggling young girls. Their legends are steeped in the kind of iconography that they understand, of childhood playtime suddenly rendered sinister and traditional feminine roles of daughter and wife. Setting the story out in the arid countryside and in the fifties creates the kind of isolation, in a time before constant distractions and entertainment, where such tales can spread. Sandberg's film does a surprisingly good job of following this atmosphere throughout, of the kind of local legend you hear about in any corner of the United States. 

What makes the ghost story such a persistent, powerful idea is that all of us are surrounded, all the time, by lingering reminders of the dead and the past. The Mullins' house is full of secrets, rooms and passageways and compartments that have been sealed off. Samuel references his wife, via a chair lift at the stairs, but the girls never get more than a fleeting glimpse of her. The matter of their late daughter is simply never discussed but her presence floats over the whole home. The prequel does a good job of implying histories for all of the girls and Sister Charlotte, their caretaker. (The biggest link the film has to the other corners of the "Conjuring"-verse.) Each of these characters have a past of their own, their own ghosts they've left behind. While foregoing the old world New England spookiness of the first "Conjuring," "Annabelle: Creation" still does a great job of capturing the purpose of the ghost story. The past is never really done with us and the legacies of the dead stick around long after they do. The humble prequel smartly focuses in on the sisters, two girls hopeful for a better future but who have to contend with the mistakes and tragedies that occurred long before them.

Sandberg cites "The Haunting" and "The Innocents" as influences and you can see that clearly in "Annabelle: Creation." However, the director wasn't making an old foggy horror picture either. The "Conjuring" series appeals to a young audience because of their cleverly engineered – or at least very loud – scare scenes. Continuing a habit he started in his short films, "Creation" sees Sandberg meticulously set up one gimmick after another within this setting. There's a faulty dumb waiter, a stair lift that only works when it's buckled, an ominous well, a sci-fi pop gun with a ball on a string, a barn door with a stubborn lock on it, and a scarecrow with the vague outline of a face on its burlap sack head. Of course, each of these props are utilized in a later moment of drawn out suspense. Some of these scenes work better than others – the dumb waiter and scarecrow rock, the well let me down a little – but I admire the patience involved in preparing each scare for later in the movie. "Annabelle: Creation" also gleefully embraces its R-rated status, getting surprisingly violent before the end in a way I don't expect from these movies. 

There's no doubt that "Annabelle: Creation" benefits from the lower expectations created by the underwhelming motion picture it's a prequel to. The kind of loud and silly jolts, with the bellowing demon voices and twitchy contortionist cameos you expect, appear with more frequency as the film goes on. These kind of overheated moments soon eclipsed the element that might've made "Annabelle: Creation" more than simply way better than you expect. The relationship between the sisters is the emotional center of the story, Linda promising Janice they will only be adopted as a pair. As Janice falls under the sway of the evil spirit, Linda is forced to watch her beloved sister turn into something else. Young scream queen Lulu Wilson makes for a compelling protagonist as Linda but we never get a true sense of what the sisters loose in this ordeal. That the film splits its time between the different girls and Sister Charlotte means none of them get as much time as is needed to truly flesh them out. The result is an impressively made boo-show with a lot of smart ideas that is ultimately lacking the heart needed to truly knock it out of the park.

"Annabelle: Creation" must eventually connect to the movies that birthed it. At nearly two hours, the prequel-to-the-prequel starts to feel a little long before the credits roll. An extended epilogue, bringing everything full circle in belabored fashion, adds to that length. Nevertheless, Sandberg and his team were given unpromising ingredients and managed to make a surprisingly well done and amusingly atmospheric horror picture out of it. The Annabelle doll itself might straddle the line between goofy, grotesque, and kind of cute but this is certainly a far better film about it than was ever expected. By discarding the connection to fraudsters like the Warrens and mostly trading out Satanic Panic hysteria for Americana ghost story elements, "Annabelle: Creation" is easily the best film to emerge out of the "Conjuring" endeavor at this point. [7/10]