This entry, I’d say, is somewhat better than the latter but still not on the level of the two principal movies. There was a lot to like in the first two Conjuring movies I found the initial spin-off, Annabelle, forgettable. I’m somewhere in between these extremes, though leaning toward the desultory end. Meanwhile, this magazine’s editor walked out partway through.

The woman from whom I purchased our tickets at the theater booth, for example, confided that she loves the Conjuring-verse and that she’d already seen Annabelle: Creation four times. Sandberg conjures up plenty of ambiance with lighting effects and camera movements, but his technique can at times feel more technically interesting (for example, the long crane shot over the church roof that swoops down to street level with the Mullins) than intrinsic to the story.įans of the Conjuring universe, of which this is the fourth film (after The Conjuring, The Conjuring 2, and Annabelle), will want to watch it regardless, and will almost certainly enjoy it more than casual viewers, who may struggle with the tedious first half. As he did in Lights Out, director David F. The cinematography is sharp, and the set design is excellent, if perhaps showy, but the script and acting are middle-of-the-road. It is oddly paced and only intermittently engaging, with a couple of scary sequences but not enough real character development or plot elaboration to surprise or thrill. Unfortunately Annabelle: Creation, though it similarly unfolds decades before its predecessor, doesn’t replicate this success. Early reviews were uniformly positive, and last year’s major horror prequel, Ouija: Origin of Evil, surprised me, not by being better than its predecessor-an extremely low bar to clear-but by being positively riveting and entirely enjoyable as a standalone film.

I had high hopes going into Annabelle: Creation.

Annabelle 2 review