There’s just something sinister about the way Annabelle smiles at you with her porcelain grin. Whereas a doll should bring about a sense of comfort and protection from the things that go bump in the night, her painted rosy red cheeks and dagger sharp eyelashes illicit a feeling of fear, as if she’s the one hiding under your bed instead of the item you cling to in order to drive the monsters away. Annabelle’s sweet little pigtails and billowy white gown look more like a ghost than a little girl as if she were hiding years worth of secrets in her inanimate mouth. You could almost swear you heard her whisper to you in the night as you cuddle her close in your bed; could almost see her move, could hear the little pitter-patter of her tiny feet running across your floor.

Ed and Lorraine Warren knew that there was something amiss about the little doll the moment that they saw her, and that’s why they’ve kept her locked up all of these years. They may have been professional paranormal investigators for several years, but it doesn’t take a medium to feel the strange vibrations that the toy girl emits with her ghoulish glass eyes. Annabelle isn’t to be trusted, even if she did start out as just another figurine to sit at a little girl’s tea party alongside her stuffed animals and puppets on strings. She may have been meant to be used as a child’s plaything to bring a family joy, but in the end, Annabelle becomes the one who uses everyone around her as a marionette to do her bidding and carry out her dark deeds.

Long before the Warrens were called to the scene and Annabelle was revealed for the little demon she is, she started out as innocent pieces in a doll maker’s workshop. Samuel Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife Mrs. Mullins (Miranda Otto) lived happy lives on their quaint farm out in the country, and Mr. Mullins merely wanted to create a companion for his little girl, Annabelle (Samara Lee), to play with while she spent all of those hours biding her time in their big wooden house. However, when a tragic car accident claims the life of their sweet child, Mr. and Mrs. Mullins go to a very dark place, and like most grieving parents who experience the loss of a child, begin bargaining in order to get her back. They’d do anything just to see their child once more, would agree to any deadly deal just to hear her laughter fill the halls of this empty house yet again – even if that means allowing an entity that they believe to be their baby girl come into the body of the doll Annabelle once held dear. Sadly, for them, and everyone else involved, evil spirits hear their cries for help, and begin to work their magic to bring their ill-advised pleas into reality.

Several years later, after they’ve taped up their newly evil Annabelle doll and tucked her away in a Bible verse-ridden closet, the Mullins welcome a new batch of children into their home. An orphanage, led by Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman), is on their last leg and desperately in need of a new place to call home. Luckily, Mr. Mullins has agreed to open the doors to his large farmhouse and let the girls live there, free of charge out of the goodness of his heart – or, as the girls find out later, out of the loneliness of his soul. At first, the children are overjoyed. Best friends Linda (Lulu Wilson) and Janice (Talitha Bateman) get to share their very own room, the older girls get a space to themselves, and because they’re out in the middle of nowhere, they have plenty of room to run around and go exploring and play in the yard. Yet, even in all of their happiness, the girls begin to notice that there’s something a bit off about this place. There’s something strange about the fact that there’s one upstairs bedroom that must remain locked at all times, something odd about the fact that they never get to see Mrs. Mullins and how she stays hidden from sight and sound in her bedridden state, only alerting the others to her presence when she rings her bell for help or coughs the dust out of her lungs, much to her hardened husband’s impatient dismay. Why are there so many secrets in this old house? Why would Mr. Mullins, a man who seems as though he lost his sense of joy many lifetimes ago, agree to allow kids, who only seem to annoy him, to share his home and eat his food? As the mystery of this old creaky establishment starts unraveling, the girls begin to feel less like they’re living in a castle, and more like they’ve just moved into a haunted house on a very isolated plot of land. By the time the doll begins making her moves, and the demons slither out from the shadows and begin terrorizing this unsuspecting group of guests, it’s already far too late to cry for help, and they’re much too far away from society for anyone to hear. As time rolls on, one thing becomes clear – these girls were doomed the minute they stepped foot into this house, and no one is coming to their rescue.

The follow-up film to director David F. Sandberg’s wildly successful debut thriller Lights Out, Annabelle: Creation surpasses the first Annabelle movie in nearly every way. Whereas the first film felt long and tedious and uneventful, Sandberg proves once again that he knows how to scare his audience. Through the power of suggestion, playing with shadows, and using the idea of shy and isolated kids to his advantage, Sandberg racks up the suspense and keeps an air of heightened tension throughout the film, making it that much easier to jump at small frights that might otherwise go unnoticed. By toying with the perceptions of curious children, he puts us in the orphans’ POV, making us feel their fear, but also creating a sense of unnerving doubt at the same time. Did we really just see Annabelle move, or is it just in our heads? Is Mrs. Mullins really evil, or is she just a very sick woman? Is there really something haunting this house, or is it just the culmination of a bunch of bored girls’ overactive brains conjuring up something to run away from and giggle at while they hide underneath their covers? It’s a fun little fright fest, and a playful world that Sandberg seems to enjoy altering just enough to create a feeling of unease as if something might be lurking just around the corner.

The success of the film can’t just be attributed to director Sandberg, though. These little girls are terrific actresses, especially Lulu Wilson, who is already busy making a name for herself in the horror genre with entries in titles like Deliver Us From Evil, Ouija: Origin of Evil, and now The Conjuring franchise as well. It’s remarkable how talented she is given her age, and it will be exciting to watch her journey unfold as the years go on. Alicia Vela-Bailey and Joseph Bishara deserve all the credit as well for being consistently creepy in all of their creature roles, contorting their bodies like sickly spiders to bring that discomfort to a palpable level until the viewers are helplessly squirming in their seats. Of course, without production designer Jennifer Spence and cinematographer Maxime Alexandre, the dusty wood-paneled folk horror vibes simply wouldn’t be there for the actors to play with, and their contributions to this film are honestly just as tremendous and important as the players who are bringing the roles to life.

There are a few issues that seem to surface over the course of the film – sometimes, although the tension is extremely present, it seems to fade away just before it can really be capitalized upon, either through a simple non-demon scare or by a strange choice to speedily cut to another scene. The writing also feels a bit rushed towards the end, as the story quickly attempts to wrap itself up and struggles to connect to the James Wan-led world so that it can justify being a spin-off of the original 2013 box office hit. However, despite its shortcomings, Annabelle: Creation is a very welcome addition to The Conjuring universe, especially given the extremely disappointing original entry that it’s following up. David F. Sandberg and James Wan seem to work well together, and hopefully, in the future, we will see their partnership blossom in many further and even more exciting entries in this dark cinematic world.