Annabelle 2: Creation (2017)

[Stormyhog]

Trailer. <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/jOgXG8GkhX8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

[Blzer]

Re: Annabelle 2: Creation (2017)

Caught a pre-screening. As most of my reviews are, this will be spoiler-free in terms of plot development and I'll just talk around it, mostly comparing it to past films in the universe.

First of all, you could nearly take my impressions of Ouija: Origin of Evil and replace it with Annabelle: Creation. Obviously there was a different plot, but Lulu Wilson is also in this film as I gushed over her performance in Origin of Evil. Here she was also stellar, but her role was vastly diminished and she simply wasn't the same kind of standout. All of the child actors were actually very good, better than the adults in fact.

The other thing is I have seen Annabelle whilst I didn't see Ouija, but besides me remembering I didn't like it much and some specific moments, I don't remember much about it (which is strange, because I also recall typing impressions for the film but can't find them anywhere... must have never hit the submit button). Given that this film is a prequel (much like Origin of Evil), I assume when it ends it shows us where we are at for Annabelle... but again, I simply cannot remember.

Anyway, I think this was another 1960s/1970s film given the technology that was present (and given when Annabelle takes place, that makes a bit of sense), and I think these horror films serve very well in the throwback sense these days, either because it doesn't make the characters too idiotic to not rely on their technology more often, or it doesn't allow the supernatural to manipulate their technology too much to the point of ridiculousness. Throwback elements were heavily in play and made for a fun setting.

Here's where I have a mixed bag of positive/negative, and it has to do with the direction. James Wan is clearly a heavy influence for David Sandberg (Lights Out), but part of me feels like Sandberg and crew watched Wan's Conjuring films, created a checklist, and tried their best to check all of those boxes. It makes for great horror, but part of it makes me feel like I've seen it all before. If Wan was directing, I think he would find a new way to shoot certain scenes and present certain items. Given the setting I was referring to before, I saw all of the foreshadowing coming into play a bit too easily. It's like it was all on-the-nose. You also can telegraph all of the jump scares. That doesn't mean they weren't still effective and that the film wasn't still scary on its own (trust me, there are plenty of non-jump-scare moments that are still very good), but I feel like I just saw a Wan copycat instead of Wan himself is all. I mean that's not a bad thing, because I considered Wan as the new master of horror before he decided to become an action director.

Now I will give Sandberg some credit. He played with out-of-focus scenery more than Wan had in the past, making us look in the dark areas or the background to see if something was lurking about. I also think he included more shock factor regarding when things can occur (daytime, early stages of the film) and how at-risk all of the children really were, making them all vulnerable to victimization by injury, possession, and/or death. I also think that without a star-studded adult cast it was a lot easier to give the child actors a lot of limelight, to the point that I knew all of them really quickly (in The Conjuring, I couldn't tell you a single one's name as they were more pawns for Wilson and Farmiga). Every so often he would let the camera cut away for the scary thing to appear/disappear/move and such, but then sometimes he would just say "**** it" and do it right in the shot just to mess with the audience.

The thing I think most people have to remember about this film, which I sometimes forget myself, is that Annabelle is just a doll... creepy looking, but just a doll nonetheless. She's not like Slappy from Goosebumps. The doll may act as a conduit for the demon however; we have known this since The Conjuring. However, this demon can also do it in its own form, or into a human, or anything else that it wants to... even more than one place at a time. Makes it kind of strange that Annabelle still remains the highlight of the film by the title, but these films are less about the doll and more about the entity, and that's fine with me. I just have to keep reminding myself that.

I want to close by saying that these films (Conjuring 1 & 2, Annabelle & prequel, Ouija & prequel) remind me a lot of the Paranormal Activity film franchise: despite a different setting and finding new ways to try and scare the audience, the story largely remains the same. Big family in big house dealing with possession and finding a way to exorcise it. Personally, I dig them all, but they aren't reinventing the wheel, so don't assume this is a fresh new take on the genre. However, given that Annabelle was so poorly received, you had to assume that if they were making this film, they likely said: "Let's make sure that doesn't happen again, so what can we do differently?" They found it, and it's called Annabelle: Creation. Very good, though I've kind of seen it before. That's okay though, because it ain't broke.

[Armor and Sword]

Re: Annabelle 2: Creation (2017)

We saw this Friday night and it was a lot of fun. Some very very scary moments and definitely a superior film to the first Annabelle.


I would rank them:

1) The Conjuring
2) The Conjuring 2
3) Annabelle Creation
4) Annabelle

[Blzer]

Re: Annabelle 2: Creation (2017)

We saw this Friday night and it was a lot of fun. Some very very scary moments and definitely a superior film to the first Annabelle.


I would rank them:

1) The Conjuring
2) The Conjuring 2
3) Annabelle Creation
4) Annabelle

I just rewatched some small parts of Annabelle to connect it with Creation, and I also rewatched The Conjuring 1 & 2. To include scares as a factor in everything, my current ranking is:

1) The Conjuring
2) Annabelle: Creation
3) The Conjuring 2
4) Annabelle

Though I really do like how The Conjuring 2 story focuses so much on the hoax theories (plus kind of how they twist the demon stuff), the only thing that would really push it over the edge is if we were on the outside looking in and uncertain ourselves as to whether what we were watching was a hoax or not.

Creation's downfall, as I said earlier, is if you saw any of Wan's other horror films, it wasn't original enough to separate it from the rest, by the scares or scene types. It was good at what it did nonetheless. In time we'll see how the rankings change, but the only swap I could even assume to see is with # 2 & 3.

[ODogg]

Re: Annabelle 2: Creation (2017)

Well jeesh, if you guys rank Annabelle the original that low and this one that high then I am really pumped for it because I thought the first one was pretty darned scary..

[Blzer]

Re: Annabelle 2: Creation (2017)

The Blu-ray is on sale for $12.99 at Best Buy. Did not ever have a Black Friday sale.

Merry early Christmas to me!

[Blzer]

Re: Annabelle 2: Creation (2017)

Third Annabelle film in the works. The release date is set for July 3, 2019. I wonder if it will be in between the first two films or after the first film in terms of the timeline.

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Now, for a random moment I'd like to pop in and entertain you all with. Here is the post-credits scene for Annabelle: Creation. Even if you choose not to watch it (it doesn't really have to do with the movie, but rather just the "universe"), just press Play and listen to the sound effects, because that's all I'm going to talk about:

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzAKrLITAYY

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gzAKrLITAYY" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; encrypted-media" allowfullscreen></iframe>

So a little over a month ago I put the director commentary of this film on, and was playing it relatively loudly in that the track itself was kind of quiet at normal levels. I anticipated at some point I would have probably fallen asleep listening to it, so I put the sleep timer on my TV just in case. As predicted, I did fall asleep. You know how there are times when the commentator will sign off during the credits and the film's regular audio track resume back to its original volume? Well, this film has that happen as well of course.

So there I was asleep, and was woken by a kind of boom-ish sound. Mind you that it was pitch-black, I was in half-asleep mode, and I was home alone. That sound comes back again, but only louder. In my current state, it is like the sound of a furnace setting a fire ablaze. The third time makes me shoot up and localize the source of the sound coming from my home theater area. It happens again louder, and I think that something there is catching fire. I think that my receiver somehow overheated and caused some sort of spark plug fuse thingamabob, so I get up and start freaking out. I'm thinking either I'm going to die, the house is going to burn down, or the least of my worries my $8000+ setup is going to be destroyed somehow.

You already know the ending to this story, so I'll just say the worst thing was that that during this half-asleep state I was in, that little eerie music playing in the background of that post-credits scene was something I thought was kind of "playing in the world around me," almost like I was in a movie and I was imagining that music happening. But as that sound got louder and louder, I tried to rush to find a flashlight and fire extinguisher. Eventually I started to come to terms with the fact that I didn't actually see anything catch fire, the sound stopped, and I started to think something else was going on, but I couldn't figure it out. I went to a sink to splash some water on my face, and then as I was officially awake I told myself to turn on my TV and see if it was from the movie. Indeed, it was.

Freaked me the hell out though.