Annabelle: Creation

A group of orphaned girls and a nun go to live with a rancher and his bed-ridden wife in their huge house. However as time passes it soon becomes clear that all is not what it seems as their dead daughter starts to make her presence felt through a creepy, wooden doll.

‘Annabelle: Creation’ (the third in ‘The Conjuring’ series) is a veritable grave digger of a movie. Exhuming the originalities of countless other horror movies such as ‘Magic’ and ‘Child’s Play’, it dispels any originality with its linear plot and leaves no creaking door un-slammed or naked light un-flickered. In a shameless litany of stolen horror tropes, ‘Annabelle: Creation’ serves up over-familiar clichés that’ll barely burst your heart beat as they parade across the screen, one theft following another.

…tries to shake more life into the demonic doll genre.

Sleep walking through its plot, actors such as Anthony LaPaglia and Miranda Otto will have you screaming at the screen as their characters serve up silliness upon silliness, line upon line, as the story tries to shake yet more life into the demonic doll genre. Not bad enough to be good, not good enough to be unintentionally funny, ‘Annabelle: Creation’s’ hackneyed, doll-like charms may well struggle this time at the box office.

With a shaky, bolt-on sequence at its close, I forecast that this is one origin story that will probably die on its debut, without a sizeable audience to witness its passing.