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Annabelle: Creation | 2017 | R | - 1.7.2
A retired toymaker (Anthony LaPaglia) and his ailing wife (Miranda Otto) welcome a nun (Stephanie Sigman) and six orphan girls into their home. When the girls find a doll named after the toymaker's daughter, who died years ago, a demon (Joseph Bishara) possessing the doll begins to terrify the orphans. Also with Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson, Alicia Vela-Bailey, Mark Bramhall and Adam Barley. Directed by David Sandberg. [1:48]
SEX/NUDITY 1 - Two teen girls and two middle school girls look at a magazine we cannot see and giggle at boy's pictures; one girl asks another girl which boy she would marry and the second girl replies she would have to date them all.
VIOLENCE/GORE 7 - A middle aged couple awakes to noises in the house at night; the man looks out the door and turns to the camera, holding his throat at it gushes with blood; a man reaches for the screaming woman as the scene ends. A demon approaches a woman, who is holding a crucifix, and the camera cuts away as we hear screams and the camera cuts back to a man finding the woman on the floor with her hand covering her eye and the side of her face streaming with blood. A young girl enters a room through a dumbwaiter and sees the upper half of a woman's body lying face down in a pool of blood; it looks up, roars, and crawls fast with its arms toward the girl, who rushes back to the dumbwaiter, screaming. A woman enters a room where a woman has been nailed to a wall and prays, but is lifted off the floor and hurled against a wall. A young girl enters a bedroom to find pools of blood on the floor and we see the upper half of a dead woman's body nailed in the crucifixion position on the wall (she is clothed in a bloodied long sleeve nightgown and her face is scarred and blood covers the ragged lower part of the nightgown and drips onto the floor).
► A doll house lights up by itself and the ghost of a dead girl stands at the doll house, turns, and walks to a window where a live girl walks over to her; the dead girl turns around with a blackened face and long sharp teeth, shouts what sounds like a not fully enunciated scatological term in a male voice, and disappears; the girl picks up a crutch and limps into the hallway, where all the doors slam shut and lock themselves as she climbs onto an elevator chair and begins to descend the stairs, but the chair reverses course, then sticks and smoke streams out of a door to fill the hallway and the girl sees the dead girl on the top landing and screams; the living girl is ejected from the chair and is thrown straight up into the rafters and we see one shoe hit the floor followed by the girl (she rolls over to show the side of her face bloody).
► A man finds a doll seated at the dining room table with a note stating, "Found you" and he turns to see a girl no longer wearing a leg brace or limping, muttering and disappearing into a shadowed wall; in the shadows, the girl seems to grow very tall and we see glowing eyes as the man holds out a crucifix and in close-up we see all his fingers break backwards and hear him shouting in pain.
► A young girl with a doll runs into a dirt road and an oncoming car hits her; when the car begins to make contact, the camera cuts away and zooms in on a doll as it falls into the dirt road, its head audibly cracking apart.
► A woman enters a dining room where she gasps and we see a man dead on the floor, his eyes open and milky. A woman wears a mask that covers the side of her face and she removes it in one scene to show a large handprint and claw marks across the forehead, eye and cheek with one eye missing (a black hole is in its place).
► In a room filling with a misty cloud, a tall demon with glowing eyes descends slowly from the ceiling, head first in the background. We see the eyes and black ram's horns on its head, long outstretched arms, and long claws (this resembles an upside down crucifixion). A dead girl's joints pop and bend as she grows taller and becomes a demon with glowing eyes and claws. Throughout the film, a demon-possessed doll is an antique wooden doll with wide blue eyes, a splotchy, cracked face, bright red lips, and red, cracked cheeks: It rocks in a chair by itself and then disappears, and it moves from a closet to a small room under some stairs and to sitting on a bed as a record player plays be itself.
► A young girl in a wheelchair lurches and is propelled forward by a tall entity in a hooded shirt and floor length skirt, its veiny hands pushing the chair fast; she is dumped into a barn and crawls backwards as the wheelchair is thrown by her head and hits a wall; walls shake and something pounds inside a closed armoire that jumps around as loud music accompanies the scene, heavy footsteps sound overhead as the ghost of a dead girl appears, grabs the girl, roars, and vomits black gunk into her mouth. A young girl shoots a pop gun into a dark hall, something grabs the ball attached to a wire and lifts it slowly to the ceiling, roars, and the girl screams; loud running steps enter her room and she rushes to the top bunk, which shakes, and the ceiling light burns out as she sees black barefoot footprints of a man on the carpet; a large doll appears and is grabbed away by a black claw. A young girl finds a key in a dollhouse and unlocks a closet to find a large doll sitting in a chair, the inner side of the door completely covered with Bible pages; the girl slams the door shut, but it opens itself and we see the doll sitting in another position, she locks the door closed and it opens again, she covers the doll with a sheet and the sheet rises to become a ghost and it plods toward the girl and the sheet comes off to reveal nothing underneath; the girl rushes to her bed in another room and hyperventilates. A young girl looks out a window while behind her, the blurry image of another little girl appears and vanishes; the first girl turns and sees her crutch on the floor, stopping short of falling on it. A young girl enters a dark room under a staircase, closes the door behind her and finds a large doll that seems to scream at her and the girl screams and falls out the door (uninjured). A girl takes a doll out to a large stone well at night and drops it down into the opening then into the well as something roars and grabs her, but a woman pulls her back and covers the opening with a heavy lid; something pounds loudly from under the lid and the girl and woman runs away. A large scarecrow propped against a building moves and then disappears; a teen girl runs into a barn and grabs an axe handle (the blade left sticking in some wood) and the scarecrow is pinned to a wall in crucifixion position as its joints pop and long claws come out of the sleeves when an overhead light bursts, and the girl uses a ladder to reach the bulb and tighten it, but a claw crushes the bulb; we see a big face, glowing eyes, ram's horns, and huge sharp teeth and another teen girl touches the first teen, who screams and they escape the barn.
► A young girl plays with a sharp knife, waving it at another girl and stabbing a small doll in the head several times; four girls run downstairs and one girl holds her elbow, blood seeping from under her hand. A young girl shoots a pop gun rifle and the ball hits a doll's face, moving its head; the head moves back to look at the girl and she rushes out of the room as the door closes itself. Four preteen and teenage girls explore a barn and find a scarecrow with a burlap bag for a head; one girl punches it as the other girls laugh. A girl sees Punch and Judy dolls waving at her, picks them up, and finds that no one is operating them.
► A young girl sits with a doll at a tea set in a dead girl's bedroom as another girl enters and the first girl grows tall (joints bending and popping) causing the second girl to run away. A young girl rides a dumbwaiter from a basement (one wall has a huge red spot dripping onto the floor) and it gets stuck between floors, claws reach into the compartment and pull it down twice as the girl climbs out into a bedroom, and then re-enters the dumbwaiter, is stuck again, but pulls ropes to get to a hallway where she exits and hides in a closet where a large doll sits in a chair; another girl with a knife jumps into the closet and points the knife at the first girl, and then tries to stab a woman who entered the room and misses; the woman pushes the girl with the knife into the closet, grabs the other girl and they shut the door and push a chest of drawers across it. Two teen girls sit on the floor with a flashlight under a sheet; the shadow of a bent over hag walks up to the sheet from behind and a face with black eye holes and no hair thrusts under the sheet and disappears as both girls scream for several seconds. A tall silhouette with ram's horns floats toward the camera, pairs of wall lights burning out as it passes them, and the scene ends. A flashback shows a dead girl as a ghost looking out a window and the girl sitting with a bride doll at a tea set. A flashback shows a man gluing pages of a Bible all over the inside of a closet door, another man sits a large bride doll in a chair in the closet and a priest sprinkles Holy Water around, inside the closet; the first man closes and locks the door. A photo of a girl and a large bride doll sitting side by side includes the girl's eyes glowing when the photo is in the dark. A father grabs his daughter and shouts "Boo!" and they both laugh.
► Two deputies open a closet and find a doll sitting in a chair beside a large hole in the wall that leads to the outside. A priest holds a doll and says a house is now blessed and a sheriff places the doll into a car trunk and leaves the scene.
► A book's pages turn quickly by themselves in a draft from a dumbwaiter door that slides open and slams closed, by itself. The head of a large doll in a chair moves. A glass eyeball rolls into view and we see a room filled with doll parts of several sizes, including headless bodies.
► An earthquake shakes a house, lights flash, knickknacks and dishes crash loudly against walls, light bulbs burst and shattered glass falls to the floor as five girls and a woman run outside and see lights in the house and a barn flash several times and sirens sound in the background.
► We hear that a woman was in an accident years ago and cannot walk. A woman tells a nun that she and her husband prayed to dark powers to see their dead little girl again. A man carves a crucifix and warns a young girl to tell her friend to stay away from a doll. A woman sees a doll and screams in fear, saying the doll is evil. A young girl wears a long leg brace, uses an arm crutch and limps; we hear that she had polio.
LANGUAGE 2 - 1 not fully enunciated scatological term, 1 mild obscenity, name-calling (gross, creepy), exclamations (wow, let's swear, I swear), 9 religious exclamations (Hallelujah, Oh Lord, Jesus, Mary and Joseph, Cleanse This House, a family says grace before dinner, two young girls say bedtime prayers, a young girl prays for protection, a young girl does confession for disobedience, a nun prays with a rosary in her hand).
SUBSTANCE USE - A large cloud of what appears to be cigarette smoke wafts from a desk to a window (we do not see a cigarette).
DISCUSSION TOPICS - Orphans, paranormal activity, talking to the dead, accidents, murder, death, ghosts, demons, demonic possession, spells, Catholicism, crucifixes, prayer, house cleansing, protecting children, terror, courage, responsibility, friendship, teens mocking the disabled, demons mocking the Crucifixion.
MESSAGE - Both good and evil powers listen to our prayers.
CAVEATS
Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.
We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.
Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.
Gladiator II - 2.7.2
Wicked: Part I - 3.4.2
Bonhoeffer: Pastor. Spy. Assassin. - 1.5.3
Emilia Pérez - 6.6.7
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