Annabelle: Creation – C-VILLE Weekly

Holy hell: The Nun sinks quickly into nonsense

Before we get to just how bad The Nun is, it’s worth taking a moment to appreciate the fact that it’s taken the so-called Conjuring Universe this long to deliver a full-on dud. The tone was effectively set by director James Wan in The Conjuring back in 2013, and even when its successors haven’t matched its quality, the series has proven to be the perfect sandbox for some terrific stylists to unleash their raw creativity with full studio support. It’s also an unlikely rehabilitation for real-life demonologists Ed and Lorraine Warren, the deeply religious couple who have witnessed several proven hoaxes but have been effective and charming as the series’ moral center.

And then comes The Nun. If Annabelle and its sequel, Annabelle: Creation, stretched the Warren’s lore to its breaking point, at least it was worth the detour. The Nun, meanwhile, is so fundamentally broken at its core that there’s nothing to stretch into a fun or entertaining story. Every time it builds up the potential for something interesting, it falls back on the same tired tricks, like a teenage guitarist who’s just learned how to two-hand tap. Demons are apparently content to reach out from nothing to grab someone with no apparent plan, and pity the next director who gets saddled with having to find new ways of stretching the design of the nun herself, looking about as scary as Marilyn Manson’s Christmas card.

The story brings us to rural Romania, where a young nun’s mysterious suicide attracts the attention of the Vatican. They recruit Father Burke (Demián Bichir) to investigate, with the help of novitiate Sister Irene (Taissa Farmiga) and local laborer of French Canadian extraction, “Frenchie” (Jonas Bloquet). It seems the nun’s death was related to some deeper evil within the convent, which is located inside a medieval castle with possible sinister origins. Yadda yadda yadda, shit gets crazy, demons get demonic, audience members endure the longest 96 minutes of their lives.

A lot of nonsense can be forgiven of genre movies if they deliver on the basics, but there are no legitimate scares anywhere in The Nun. The Annabelle story was downright idiotic, but the movie had some of the best representations of demons in recent memory. The demons in The Nun have zero reason to be doing any of the things they do. What do they want from the humans they’re terrorizing? Hands reaching out of the darkness is a bit creepy, but if it keeps happening with no stakes, it becomes boring, which is something demons should never be.

You may flinch at some jump scares in The Nun, but only because your survival instincts tell you to recoil when something is sudden and loud, not because the movie earns your fear. If you laugh when someone tickles you, that doesn’t make them funny; similarly, if you jump at a jump scare, that doesn’t make the movie scary. Skip this one.

The Nun

R, 96 minutes; Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX, Violet Crown Cinema

Playing this week:

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema 377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056 z BlacKkKlansman, Crazy Rich Asians, Kin, Mission Impossible: Fallout, Operation Finale, Peppermint

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213 z Alpha, BlacKkKlansman, Christopher Robin, Crazy Rich Asians, God Bless the Broken Road, Kin, The Little Stranger, Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again, The Meg, Mission Impossible: Fallout, Peppermint, Searching

Violet Crown Cinema 200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000 z BlacKkKlansman, Christopher Robin, Crazy Rich Asians, Juliet, Naked, The Meg, Mission Impossible: Fallout, On Chesil Beach, Operation Finale, Searching

Annabelle: Creation is a great escape

Who would have known a prequel series to a reboot of a movie based on a book based on a hoax would boast some of the most delightful big-budget horror filmmaking in recent memory?

The Annabelle series is one that should not work; kids, spooky dolls and overexplained mythologies are typically the undoing of any horror story, a genre that works best when shrouded in mystery so as to increase suspense. And yet here we are, two entries into a spin-off of James Wan’s The Conjuring films that have a life all their own, blazing a narrative and stylistic path wholly different from the fact-based life of Catholic paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. There is only one “historical” detail about this doll—that it supposedly terrorized its owner before Lorraine determined it was possessed by a spirit named Annabelle Higgins. Everything else in these films falls short of even that level of truth.

Annabelle: Creation
R, 109 minutes
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Regal Stonefield Stadium 14 & IMAX and Violet Crown Cinema

Perhaps that is precisely why Annabelle: Creation is the most fun that fans of classic horror can have at the cinema this summer. Because everything is a completely new invention on the part of the filmmakers, this series has become home for set designers, creature creators and more to let their imaginations run wild. There’s only so much you can do with a doll, but if there’s an enormous demon inhabiting that doll with the ability to manifest itself, now we’re talking. Then, the dumb-looking toy becomes a foreshadowing tool rather than the thing that is supposed to be scary in itself, giving director David F. Sandberg (Lights Out) more creative license than one might typically expect in a big-studio horror sequel.

The story finds the tiniest sliver left unexplained by the previous Annabelle—we learned how the doll was let loose on the world, but not how it was first crafted, then possessed. We meet small-town toymaker Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife, Esther (Miranda Otto). Samuel creates the prototype of the Annabelle doll, and advance orders are through the roof. He had only made one, though, when the couple’s daughter is killed in a tragic accident.

Twelve years later, Samuel and Esther allow their home to be used by the church to house orphaned girls, including best friends Janice (Talitha Bateman) and Linda (Lulu Wilson). In the years between, Esther has suffered an accident that leaves her bedridden, while Samuel is extremely protective of his wife and his daughter’s memory—the latter’s room is locked and entry is forbidden. Soon, a voice from the room beckons to Janice, and terror ensues.

Though it runs a touch on the long side, there’s quite a bit to enjoy about Annabelle: Creation. The mood is suitably spooky, the visuals are slyly complex, and the cast of all ages is thoroughly charming with excellent chemistry. There are no huge scares as in The Conjuring (the less said about The Conjuring 2, the better), and in Annabelle, Sandberg masterfully plays with the audience’s instinct for anticipation. Even when the payoff isn’t terribly frightening, arriving there is always a ride.

Without giving anything away, at one point a character exclaims after witnessing something odd, “What was that?” The amazing reply: “Who cares. Run!” That is exactly the type of movie this is—self-aware but never self-parodying—and it’s well worth your time.

Playing this week

Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
377 Merchant Walk Sq., 326-5056

Atomic Blonde, The Dark Tower, Detroit, Dunkirk, Jumanji, Moonrise Kingdom, The Nut Job: Nutty by Nature

Regal Stonefield 14 and IMAX
The Shops at Stonefield, 244-3213

Atomic Blonde, The Dark Tower, Despicable Me 3, Detroit, Dunkirk, The Emoji Movie, Girls Trip, The Glass Castle, Kidnap, The Nut Job: Nutty by Nature, Spider-man: Homecoming, Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets, War for the Planet of the Apes

Violet Crown Cinema
200 W. Main St., Downtown Mall, 529-3000

Atomic Blonde, Baby Driver, The Big Sick, The Dark Tower, Dunkirk, Detroit, Girls Trip, The Glass Castle, Maudie, The Nut Job: Nutty by Nature, Shrek, Spider-man: Homecoming