Annabelle: Creation

Many good horror movies rely on a gimmick - the clap clap from the first Conjuring, Freddy existing only in your dreams from Nightmare on Elm Street etc. - and clear rules that the monster/creature/killer follows. The gimmick entices the viewer and gives us a hook or perspective on the story and the rules creates the foundation of this world and this is where Annabelle struggles.

First of all there's no clear hook or gimmick and much like how the second Conjuring decided to throw in the crooked man this movie decides to throw everything at the wall and seeing what sticks. It's also very unclear what the rules are since the "presence" (we'll call it that) is sometimes prohibited by mere physical obstacles but teleports around at other times as well as somehow being in two places at once with no explanation. I'm fine with a creature essentially teleporting but you can't mix and match features the way they do in this film without it losing some of what makes it endearing.

The child actors are mostly fine as are the whole crew but the writing does little to necessitate such a large amount of kids. We get to know very few of them and it's not like they're treated like cannon fodder for the presence either. Actually I think having so many kids somewhat subtract from the horror since I subconsciously know that are major studio won't run around killing children in their movies.

The ending of the movie is perhaps the worst part. It doesn't work because of three reasons. Since there's no set rules there's no clear end game scenario and the horror just kind of fizzles out because the run time needs it to, secondly the very last part of the movie just don't make sense to me and thirdly the beginning of the first Conjuring movie don't add up after what is set up in this movie.

With that said you'll get a few scares out of Annabelle: Creation and it's a perfectly passable horror movie that is going to rake in money and put further faith into The Conjuring cinematic universe even if it does very little to add any depth to said universe.