Annabelle 2: The Creation of Evil, by director David S. Sandberg, is the fourth film in The Conjuring franchise, produced by James Wan, who was the producer of nothing more, nothing less than Saw. So even horror movies now feature franchises that promise to expand and create universes as rich as those of Marvel or D.C. While this fast-setting franchise often produces shaken and lifeless movies, the same can not be said of Annabelle.
With an impeccable photograph, the horror film brings back that kind of more direct horror, which needs nothing more than visuals that alone frighten. Sandberg also manages to delay the scares in a very successful and original way. While most horror films simply delay the scare with silly conversations and suspense music, Annabelle 2 does this while developing her characters, showing, among other things, Annabelle’s family.
This happy family, with a dollmaker father and a housewife mother, had Annabelle, his daughter, as the center of the universe. But when an accident takes her daughter, macabre events begin to take over the plot. Such a contradiction between a seemingly happy family but having a terrible fate also appears in the film’s photograph, which shows beautiful and breathtaking landscapes as well as stunning scenery.
Many horror films bring this clash between happiness and sadness, purity and evil. For example, The Illuminated, directed by Stanley Kubrick, also shows beautiful landscapes and places that are later contrasted with a macabre haunted hotel. But in most of these movies, those who are pure in heart, as children, can survive the most evil monsters and entities.
Annabelle 2 goes further and gives us no indication that anyone can survive the entity that appears to have a symbiotic relationship with one of the dolls created by the craftsman. In a film industry that is accustomed to television shows like Game of Thrones, where any character, honored and popular as it may be, can die at any moment, Annabelle 2 falls like a glove.
Such a characteristic leaves suspense, and horror, higher. If in the past we could guess who would be the victim (usually teenage girls exploiting their sexuality and having boyfriends who do not believe in horror stories), now anyone is in danger. It is as if the monster stopped attacking the immoral ones first and practically turned into a Russian roulette, making a victim anyone it wishes.
So when the film shows clever girls, and even with physical problems, the audience is more than willing to let Annabelle leave them alone, creating an identification with the characters that is not usually seen in horror films and hence more suspense and terror. In Annabelle 2, horror has no limits.
(article translated from the original version in portuguese, by Google Translate)