Annabelle: Creation (Movie Review)

 ***This review will contain spoilers***

Summary:

Former toymaker Sam Mullins and his wife, Esther, are happy to welcome a nun and six orphaned girls into their California farmhouse. Years earlier, the couple's 7 year old daughter Annabelle died in a tragic car accident. Terror soon strikes when one child sneaks into a forbidden room and finds a seemingly innocent doll that appears to have a life of its own. 

At the start of the movie I was skeptical because we already knew how Annabelle was created from the first movie so what more could they possibly add to her story? The first half of the movie was dull and insufferable. There was no real development to the story, I do like movies that have a slow buildup but each scene adds to the story. This movie didn't have that. There was nothing exciting about the opening scene that hooked me in and having a bunch of girls move into a house didn't add anything either. 

I found the Mullins story and experiences after their daughter died would have been a lot better of a story to focus on for the first half of the movie than wasting precious time having the girls move in and settle into the house. What I would have preferred was to have focused on the Mullins, seen the  development of the demon taunting and hurting them, seen the exorcism of Esther and finally locking the doll away in a small closet then fast-forwarded to the Mullins welcoming the girls into their home and then the demon escaping the closet and wrecking havoc while keeping the original ending. I think that would have been a lot better instead of how they mapped out this movie. 

There were a few things in the movie that I found really weird which the first main one is if the Mullins knew there was a great evil locked away in the house then why the hell would they invite young girls to stay there and say "Don't go in this room" and expect them to listen? What kid actually listens? That was stupid and extremely selfish of them. Why bring innocent children in a dangerous home? And the other thing, why did the nun take so long to start praying and invoking the name of God when she saw all this evil haunted shit happening? Am I the only one who found that so strange? She literally devoted herself to God and couldn't think to pray a little sooner? But not only that, she sacrifices Janice the child possessed by the demon to save the group. I just found it odd that she would do that instead of trying to save her. Why does Linda the young girl have better initiative regarding evil than a nun? Made no sense to me. 

The ending was such a twist that I didn't expect myself liking it as much as I did. Once the possessed girl Janice was able to escape from the closet she went to an orphanage and pretended to be a girl named Annabelle. A family ended up adopting her and she stayed with them for many years. It was actually pretty cool seeing the parents gift her a toy doll which is what the original Annabelle doll looked like (more like a plushie). That same girl who was possessed by the demon was the same young woman who broke into the Form's house to sacrifice herself while holding a Annabelle doll. Thus, doing a full circle back to the first movie! 

Rating:

I'm going to give Annabelle: Creation 3 stars on 5. I was skeptical from the beginning but they were able to change my mind by the end of the movie. However, with that being said, the first half of the movie was lacking...like everything. If they would have changed the first half of the movie to focus more on the Mullins, and then switched to the young girls being preyed by the demon I think we would of had a whole different movie that would have been a lot better than what was presented. Overall, it was ok but the ending in particular was awesome. If you can get past the first half of the movie I think you'd enjoy what this movie adds to the Annabelle story