6.9 | / 10 |
Users | 4.7 | |
Reviewer | 3.5 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
A dollmaker and his wife embed their daughter's spirit into a doll, only to realize it is a demon !
Starring: Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Eliana Bateman, Lulu Wilson, Anthony LaPaglia, Miranda OttoHorror | 100% |
Supernatural | 39% |
Thriller | 32% |
Period | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: Dolby Atmos
English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French (Canada): Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 5.1
English: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
English DD=narrative descriptive
English SDH, French, Portuguese, Spanish
Blu-ray Disc
Two-disc set (1 BD, 1 DVD)
UV digital copy
DVD copy
Slipcover in original pressing
Region free
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.5 |
Perhaps you saw one of the many articles that were trending around (and, frankly, after) Halloween about some poor little boy whose mother had dressed him up as Annabelle and then taken him to the dentist where, plopped down on the dental chair and obviously not happy to begin with, he was repeatedly photographed in a series of admittedly funny pictures by some bright adult, which were of course immediately posted to the internet and which predictably went viral. That little kid is a future candidate for some serious therapy, but by the time he’s ready for it, there may well be a whole universe of other bizarre creatures culled from the still relatively nascent franchise stemming from 2013’s somewhat surprising smash hit The Conjuring, so that this kid, now an adult, can torment his children with any number of other Halloween costuming choices. The Conjuring documented the (supposedly) real life adventures of paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren (played in the film by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), two ghost obsessed individuals who might be thought of as counterparts of Scully and Mulder in The X-Files, albeit shorn of that pair’s “official” link to the FBI (not to mention Scully’s skepticism). The Warrens had a long if controversial “career” looking into a series of purported hauntings, including the one that later gave birth to another cinematic franchise, The Amityville Horror, though The Conjuring focused on a situation that might have been called The Harrisville Horror. There has been a steady stream of debunking efforts lobbed against the Warrens, but with a large swath of the population resolutely believing that “the truth is out there” (so to speak), those efforts have hardly mattered, as evidenced by The Conjuring’s immense box office returns.
Annabelle: Creation is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Warner Brother Home Entertainment with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.40:1. Captured with Arri Alexa cameras and then finished at a 2K DI, Annabelle: Creation is actually pretty sumptuous looking quite a bit of the time on Blu-ray, courtesy of some really nicely evocative lighting techniques utilized by cinematographer Maxime Alexandre (there are some interesting interviews with Alexandre online where he discusses some of the strategies he employed on the film which I heartily recommend to the enterprising Googler). A lot of the film is almost sepia toned at times, but fine detail levels remain generally very high throughout the presentation. Some isolated moments have virtually palpable fine detail levels, as in some early views of the wooden "Mullins Toys" boxes that the dolls get placed into. Director David F. Sandberg evidently instructed Alexandre to create near "Cundey" levels of darkness throughout the film, and as such, there are moments when shadow definition is (perhaps intentionally) left on the opaque side. The brightly lit outdoor moments are often beautiful and offer both impressive depth of field and (again) generally excellent fine detail levels.
Annabelle: Creation features a nicely nuanced if only occasionally really "showy" Dolby Atmos track, one that derives a lot of its immersive tendencies from "things that go bump in the night". A number of outdoor scenes also offer nice pinpoint placement of ambient environmental effects, including things like slightly wafting breezes that seems to hover in midair. While there are some traditional startle effects, a lot of the track is actually a bit on the restrained side, at least for a horror film, with somewhat long subdued sequences suddenly interrupted by more ambitious sound design offerings, something that gives the track a bit of a roller coaster feeling. Fidelity is great throughout, and dynamic range is also very wide taken as a whole.
I frankly wasn't expecting much from Annabelle: Creation, and perhaps that's one key for the more demanding viewers approaching this latest installment in the ever expanding Conjuring universe. A lot of the film has an undeniably rote feel to it, but there are some genuine moments of anxiety, even if things tip over into needless Grand Guignol and/or melodrama at times (did we really need a late reveal showing one character with a Phantom of the Opera mask?). Technical merits are very strong and with caveats noted and expectations set appropriately, Annabelle: Creation comes Recommended.
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