the fiends nail time bombs to the hands of the clocks

Same complaint, same response, it's getting old...

[11:52] sxxxxx Rxxxxxxx: I have to say beautiful work by the makers, 1 out of 10 I would give it a 8 but you know what would give it a 10? Hmmmm lets see. what could it be? what would make it a 10 out of 10.? If there were stuff for Guys to use more important us Gorean guys. Vikings Guys medieval....
[11:54] Emilly Orr: We've heard this before, and my response is the same: there are makers of Gorean clothing on the list, they do show up, you've just bought all of it. So find new stores and talk to them about joining the 25L list.

I mean, really. Want more makers of mens' attire on a sales list? Talk to the merchants who make them. If he doesn't know any, this is not my--or the sales list's--problem.

In the meantime, I finally saw Annabelle: Creation. While I very much enjoyed The Conjuring and The Conjuring II, the rest of the films in the series have been a disappointment. The Nun was nigh unwatchable, the first Annabelle film was tedious, and La Llorona was just ridiculous in every way. And pointless, to be blunt. Too much emphasis on jump scares over plot, on cranking films out over actual integrity of character.

But I liked the trailer for Annabelle: Creation. And while I knew it wouldn't be a great film, I thought it had a chance to be an okay film. But after seeing it, I'm just confused.



Don't get me wrong. They actually picked a good team of actors. That's not the issue. And the plot seems...well, it has iffy moments, but it seems (at least structurally) sound. And the setting definitely works--most Americans can easily believe the midlands, the so-called "flyover states", are haunted--whether they live in one or not.



No, I think it comes down to direction. John R. Leonetti had directed the first iteration of Annabelle, and the results weren't stellar. To be fair, while he has a solid footing in horror, most of his horror credits have been as a director of photography, not an actual film director. He did a capable job on The Conjuring, a film I liked very much, and had taken the first Annabelle, which...wasn't as good.

And he was attached to the project at first, but...not that long after, he was replaced by David F. Sandberg, who, while he has several directorial credits to his name, is mainly known for three: Lights Out a film with a strong plot and weak direction, Shazam!, a film that doesn't even start to become likeable until the last ten minutes, and...Annabelle: Creation.



So what's wrong with it, other than the emphasis on jump scares, which reduce all build-up of tension in any horror film, over actual dread? That's where my confusion comes in.

I truly can't fault the acting. There are some big names attached, and they're great, but even the unknowns are good--honest, heartfelt, we know their characters, we understand them, we feel for them. That's not the issue.

The issue really is the direction. In the sense that...how do I describe this? It almost feels like it's a two-director film. It's like Alfred Hitchcock and Eli Roth decided to make a film together. There is a build-up of creeping dread, long, drawn-out shots that generate tension, and then...JUMP SCARE. There's the revelation of a plot point, and several breathless moments where we try to figure out--did we see something in the shadows, or is it just human brains trying to pattern our way through the darkness? And then...JUMP SCARE.



It's not a coherent whole. The two sides--the two stories, the feeling of twin directors, whatever it is--keep tugging at each other. It's..bipolar. It's a bad mix.

And even with that, it was a far better film than Annabelle, and received much more box office than its predecessor, and...I just don't understand why. All right, in the very basic sense of the term, it was a better film, because the original independent Annabelle movie was terrible. But this? This isn't good. It has good moments, but...that's all they are, a collection of moments that do not, on their own, add up to a decent film.

It relies on jump scares over storytelling. It's plebian. It's mediocre. And ultimately disappointing overall, because it could have been so much more.