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Written by Gary Dauberman
Directed by David F. Sandberg
Janice: "Forgive me, Father, for I am about to sin."
How do you follow the success of Annabelle? Well, you follow it up with a prequel that gave the evil doll it's origin story of course. Yup, that's how you do it.
You've got the Mullins family - doll maker, Samuel (Anthony LaPaglia), his wife Esther (Miranda Otto) and their daughter, Annabelle (Samara Lee). They're a happy family until tragedy struck and poor Annabelle died early in the movie.
It also didn't take this prequel to change course a little by having a group of characters who'd end up on the Mullins land and would interact with a certain doll. Those people included Father Massey (Mark Bramhill), Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) and a bunch of young girls.
The girls in questions were Linda (Lulu Wilson), Carol (Grace Fulton), Nancy (Philippa Coulthard), Kate (Tayler Buck), Tierney (Lou Lou Safran) and Janice (Talitha Bateman). It's not long before Annabelle and the Demon (Joseph Bishara/Fred Tatasciore) began to terrorise everyone.
Things didn't particularly end well for the grieving Mullins family and the demon in particular took something of an interest in Janice. In fact Janice's story tied in rather fittingly to the first movie when she ended up with a new family and a new name.
Janice became Annabelle Higgins and her unfortunate adoptive parents, Pete (Brian Howe) and Sharon (Kerry O'Malley) would later become victims of Annabelle. Yup, this really did tie nicely back to a key event from the first movie.
- David F. Sandberg who directed this movie would later feature the Annabelle doll in both of his Shazam! movie. His wife, Lotte Losten had a small role in the film.
- There's a teaser for The Nun at the end of the movie.
- Standout music: Charles MacDonald's You Are My Sunshine.
- Chronology: Twelve years before the events of Annabelle.
Annabelle: Creation is a very dull, often confusing prequel. I've watched it enough times and I just don't like it that much as either a prequel or movie (though I did appreciate the brief appearance of what the real doll looks like in real life). It's very tedious and drawn out.
Rating: 5 out of 10
