Introduced by producer James Wan after the success of his bloody, unsavory “Saw” movies, the not-quite-natural-looking doll’s frozen smile, staring eyes and tendency to attack people when the lights go out made her the breakout star of the films. Though “Creation” marks the third on-screen appearance of everyone’s favorite demonically possessed doll, the movie is actually something of a prequel to a prequel, taking place a decade before the previous installment. “Creation” owes much to last year’s “Ouija: Origin of Evil,” another better-than-expected prequel to a soulless studio cash-in: a period setting, a central trio of strong women, demonic possession, similar jump-scares, even the same lead actress (Wilson, whose matter-of-fact moxie here makes for an appealing inversion of her “Ouija” role). Director David F. Sandberg and writer Gary Dauberman understand that the best way to conjure audience anxiety is to cross different emotional states one step at a time. Talitha Bateman is heartbreaking as a sweet girl slowed by polio. Annabelle: Creation ★★★½ out of 4 stars Rating: R for horror violence and terror.
– The creepy doll that frightened in The Conjuring (2013) and Annabelle (2014) is back in a prequel to a prequel, in which viewers meet the toy maker who created her. When tragedy strikes, Annabelle is locked away in a room in his California home—until curious orphans discover her. Critics are giving it a 69% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Samples: Presenting Annabelle's story in reverse may sound like a "recipe for disaster," but Annabelle: Creation is not a disaster. It's "spine-tingling," writes Isaac Feldberg at the Boston Globe. He describes it as "the kind of old-school chiller that starts slow, patiently turning the screws" before "a brutal, blood-curdling crescendo of a third act." Feldberg adds most will "come away feeling spooked and satisfied." Its scenes are "cheekily effective," writes Jeannette Catsoulis at the New York Times, who reserves most of her praise for director David F. Sandberg. He "proves a master of the flash-scare, a nifty choreographer of precipitous timing and striptease visuals. But he's also adroit with more leisurely horrors, like the snap-crackle-pop of the murderous shade flexing for the kill," she writes. Julia Cooper at the Globe and Mail, however, says the film is "as lifeless as an old doll." It doesn't "concern itself with details such as motive" and features a script "full of mawkish dialogue weakly delivered by the film's child actors." To boot, "Sandberg does nothing to update his horror film from some of the genre's more damaging stereotypes," including disability as weakness, Cooper writes. For Colin Covert, though, this is "the eerie and unsettling prequel [Annabelle] deserves." He calls the film "impressively creative" and "refreshingly intelligent"—a "taut shot in the arm for a genre that badly needs it." As for frights, this Annabelle installment is "the scariest one yet," he writes at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Buckle up your belt or this moan-inducing, female-centric supernatural thriller will scare your pants off."