Has echoes of the original film, and works more with mood and less with cheap scares than either Annabelle or The Conjuring 2, resulting in a truly effective genre flick.
Fans of these movies and their adjectival brethren, Insidious, Sinister and the like, know exactly what to expect and they get it here in spades, though sadly at the expense of internal logic and strong character work.
It might not be another Conjuring, but [Annabelle: Creation] manages to channel the appeal of the franchise well enough to keep its blood flowing until the next installment.
The scares are nicely handled early on and director David F Sandberg breathes new life into hoary horror tropes. But the movie loses puff after an hour when it decides to show us the monster.
