As their eyes widen and the hair on their neck goes up regarding just what is making that creaking sound down the dark hallway, so does yours. Sandberg and his team do a marvelous job at building tension through old-fashioned horror movie means like forcing our perspective to stay with our terrified young ladies. Yes, believe it or not, “Annabelle: Creation” has what the first film was so clearly lacking: a strong visual language.

Sandberg loves to cast light through crosses on windows and gets some incredible mileage in the final act with imagery that recalls the crucifixion. These movies have several themes, but one of the most prominent is the utter failure of religion to protect us from true evil. Before you know it, souls are being fought over, lights are going out, and religious imagery is being subverted everywhere. The girls mostly stay to themselves, but Janice is the first to notice that Bee’s locked room is open in the middle of the night, and then she finds that damned doll. And Esther Mullins ( Miranda Otto) is even more mysterious, injured, bed-ridden and ringing a bell whenever she needs her husband. Sure, Samuel Mullins ( Anthony LaPaglia) seems like a nice enough guy, but he’s overly concerned about anyone going in his deceased daughter Bee’s room. Any good horror fan knows that evil always preys on the weak and kind first.Īnd so it’s Janice who first notices something isn’t right in the Mullins house. Led by Sister Charlotte ( Stephanie Sigman), the girls vary in age-again, like the sisters in the original film-but focus immediately falls on Janice (Taliha Bateman), weakened by polio, and her sweet best friend Linda ( Lulu Wilson). In this case, it’s a group of orphans who are allowed to live in a large, isolated home when their orphanage closes. Just as that box office hit centered on a group of sisters caught in a nightmare, “Annabelle: Creation” is essentially a haunted house flick with another collection of young girls faced with things that go bump in the night.

While the title makes clear that this is an origin story for one of the creepiest dolls in film history, it also sets up its own characters and universe in which to play, one that echoes the construction and themes from James Wan’s original film more than any of the works that have followed.

Is there an annabelle 2