El spoopy doll.

Annabelle: Creation can teach us important lessons on life. Number one; if you’re a houseguest don’t fuck around. That means if the host says don’t go into a room that they keep locked, don’t go into the room. Especially if you get a creepy note from an unknown sender telling you to go into the room which is conspicuously unlocked now. Number two; if you’re a house host, don’t fuck around. That means not being ominous around children when telling them not to do something because you’ll probably just guarantee they’ll do it out of curiosity.

This whole movie could’ve been avoided if the guy had just said that the room’s walls were covered in naked oil paintings of his grandma. Nobody’s going in that room, even to shut off a vinyl record player or stop the annoying doll from creaking the chair.

The fourth movie in the Conjuring universe, Annabelle: Creation finally answers the question that the first film didn’t; what the hell is up with that doll? Where did it come from? How did it get chock full of spoopies? Why doesn’t the devil just go into showbiz with all that dramatic flair? Was the money from Shazam: Fury of the Gods worth David Sandberg’s dignity? I’m guessing expensive booze really helps quiet the tears.

Directed by David Sandberg and written by Gary Dauberman who wrote all of the Annabelle films as well as The Nun movies and also the upcoming Train To New York, Annabelle: Creation is naturally a prequel to 2014’s Annabelle. It tells the story of a nun (Stephanie Sigman) and several orphans who come to live at the home of Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Esther (Miranda Otto) years after the death of their daughter Bee (Samara Lee) who missed lesson #0: You can’t stop a moving vehicle with your face.

The main two girls are Janice (Talitha Bateman) and Linda (Lulu Wilson) and you really forget how quickly kids change. It’s crazy to think that there’s only about three or four years between Lulu Wilson playing Linda and playing Becky. Janice is stricken with the Polio and also she unleashes the Annabelle demon on the house.

As usual the Annabelle demon who we know is Malthus wants souls, and more than that he wants a captive YouTube audience to make funny moment videos with. If you’re confused as I was, apparently in this universe the demon has to mess with people to whittle down their resolve and faith before it can swoop in and take their souls. That whole nonsense about requiring consent to take a soul from the first movie is actually just demon lies. I knew I shouldn’t have trusted the goat-horned demon man.

Once again they nailed it with the cinematography, creating tense scenes. You know a horror movie is good when they pull off daytime shots that are still creepy, like the nun scene in Conjuring 2. You know a movie is extra good when I can watch it in the middle of the daytime and still get tense. I don’t get spooped from horror films easy, but the Conjuring films really know how to mingle with the various sounds my house makes. There’s a lot of great camera work that is expertly mixed with the sound, the kind where when it goes dead silent you know the creepies are coming out.

It never feels cheap and tawdry, like a Tubi horror film or a Fortnite horror map built by a ten year old who knows nothing but screaming jump scares from Five Nights at Freddy’s. Like the prior movies there’s a few real standout moments that’ll stick themselves in your brain, like the bedsheet scene or under the staircase. It’s a great series, you should watch it.

On to the Nun!

Rating: A