Annabelle: Creation: Orphans Have Never Had it Worse
Photo Credit: David Sandberg
By Katherine Lentz, A&E Editor
Annabelle: Creation is the fourth installment of the Creation series – a prequel that doesn’t advance the overall story, but fits the bill for people seeking a good fright. Despite its relatively unimaginative plot, Annabelle: Creation has enough frightful elements to ensure horror fans’ spines are curling up like autumn leaves as the protagonists become more and more entrenched within the sinister mysteries of a dead girl’s bedroom — and everything that lurks within.
Things are bleak from the beginning for a group of orphans who are offered one last chance to find a home by a former toy-maker, who is lonely and still desperately trying to overcome his daughter’s sudden, violent death in an automobile accident twelve years prior. Although originally enthralled by the beautiful, large home the girls’ quickly realize something is amiss when they find an odd looking and particularly frightful doll named Annabelle tucked away in the little girl’s old bedroom. Annabelle is no ordinary doll – it is a personification of hidden spirits that wander the house and provides the animus for the story.
As the plot progresses, the girls continually face new obstacles, not all of which are provided by malignant supernatural entities. However, their urges to complain about the horrors of their new abode are dulled by the knowledge that this home is the only one they have. The girls are faced with a Cornellian dilemma: the orphans must choose between horrors, each of which can ruin what is already a difficult life. Will it be a life of terror with a home, or will it be a homeless life of drifting and uncertainty? Although the plot was at times predictable, at other times it includes just enough plot twists to keep things interesting. For fans of the genre, Annabelle has proved to be a thriller just terrifying enough to keep them on the edge of their seats throughout the film.
