It’s a good year for creepy dolls, if such a thing could ever be said. Not only do horror fans have the Conjuring spin-off Annabelle: Creation coming up this summer, but in the fall we’re also getting Cult of Chucky, the seventh film in the successful Child’s Play franchise.
But since we’ll still have to wait a while to find out which film, Annabelle: Creation or Cult of Chucky, wins the hearts of horror fans, I was able to sit down with director David F. Sandberg at WonderCon this last weekend to talk about whether his killer doll would be able to take down Chucky in a no holds barred fight. And when David F. Sandberg said, in no uncertain terms, that Annabelle would emerge victorious, we started running down all the other great killer dolls in movie history until we (finally) settled on a horror franchise whose deadly dolls would be a match for his new monster.
While we were at it, I also spoke with David F. Sandberg about some potential new tricks for his Lights Out horror series, where he hopes his career will branch out beyond the horror genre, and how Annabelle: Creation fits in with the previous Annabelle film, which also claimed to show the origin of the killer plaything.
Annabelle: Creation skulks into theaters on August 11, 2017.
David F. Sandberg: This is fun, going to WonderCon!
Crave: Have you done a lot of conventions before?
I did WonderCon last year but because I started shooting Annabelle right after Lights Out, I didn’t get to go to Comic-Con or any other of those. But this time I want to go to Comic-Con as well.
It’s an important facet of the industry now. You have to go out and interact with the fans and meet them en masse. Is that something you were ready for when you became a filmmaker, staring down 20,000 people after they see a trailer for Annabelle?
Yeah, I don’t know if I was ready for it but I’m pretty okay with it. It’s not bad, even though it’s like a thousand people out there or more. It’s pretty cool.
I haven’t seen Annabelle: Creation yet, so there’s only so much I can ask, but this film also takes place before The Conjuring…?
Yeah.
Okay, we just had an Annabelle prequel. How does that work? How does that fit in?
[Laughs.] Well, a lot of people online have been like, “How does that work? We see her get possessed in the first one and then it’s The Conjuring!”
Yeah, so where does this fit in? Are we rewriting it?
No. So it does fit in but I can’t really tell you how without it being a spoiler. Like, it is a standalone movie that you can watch on its own, but if you’ve seen the first one there will be moments where you go, “Oh, okay, I see how it ties together.”
By “the first one” you mean the last Annabelle?
Yes. Annabelle 1.
Warner Bros.
Was that something you were eager to get away from, to find your own voice, your own stamp for Annabelle?
Yeah, just because it wouldn’t have been very fun to just do the first movie again. Like, “Argh! She comes back and John and Mia have to fight her again!” That’s what was enticing to me, that Annabelle: Creation would be its own thing.
There’s also, you just can’t miss the allure of the killer doll movie.
Yeah, absolutely.
Is it just that simple? “Dolls are creepy?” Or do you think there’s more to it than that?
I’m not sure why. I think it has something to do with the uncanny valley effect. Like we’ve created these things that look kind of like us, and you’re almost expecting them to move. Yeah, I think it’s just because they look like us that they creep us out.
There’s a long history of killer doll movies…
Yeah, I grew up with Chucky, from Child’s Play.
Who would win in a fight: Annabelle or Chucky?
Annabelle, I think.
You think?
She’s more powerful. Chucky’s just like a tiny person. Annabelle has this… she can affect things around her in a different way and take many forms, the evil that comes from her.
So do you think she’s the ultimate killer doll? Do you think she could also take out the Zuni Fetish Doll from…
Trilogy of Terror? Yeah, I think so. [Laughs.]
The clown from Poltergeist?
Oh, definitely.
All the Puppet Master puppets, together?
How many were in those movies?
Throughout all the movies? Quite a few, and one of them had a flamethrower.
Oh yeah, that’s true, and the drill-head guy… they might put up a fight.
Warner Bros.
What is your concern, as a filmmaker, in bringing a doll to life? What’s your first approach?
Well, the problem is there are certain rules with Annabelle. Like, you can’t really see her walk around, because she’s not Chucky, she’s something else, which makes it a little hard. Like, okay, how do we make her a threat if she can’t move? So you have to come up with other ways of moving her around. I don’t know if you saw the clip…?
I was not able to see the clip.
Yeah, [we] sort of throw a sheet over her and the sheet moves, and that’s how we sort of get away with it. But also you have to see it as her being a vessel, or a portal for evil, so you can have things happen around her. That’s sort of how you have to approach it.
Annabelle is based on a true story.
Yeah.
Does that still effect you, or are you off on your own tangent now?
So basically the Conjuring stories, the Conjuring movies, are based on actual cases, but then Annabelle and The Nun sort of branch off into more their own stories.
You mean the spin-offs…
Yes.
Because there was an actual Annabelle doll. It was a Raggedy Ann doll.
Yes.
Did you ever fight for that? Just, “Can we get the Raggedy Ann doll…?” How cool would that be?
Well… a Raggedy Ann doll does briefly pop up in this film. [Laughs.] But no, I think Raggedy Ann would not have been as creepy. […] Funny story though, right after we wrapped on this, my wife and I we went to a cabin out in Lake Arrowhead, that area.
That’s tempting fate, for a horror filmmaker.
Yeah, so we rented a cabin on Airbnb, and when we got there, on the bed was a Raggedy Ann doll. So that was like, “Well, this is freaky.” I put that in Instagram. What the hell?
They knew!
Yeah.
Warner Bros.
With Lights Out and Annabelle: Creation, you’re “a horror filmmaker.” But we’ve heard lately that you may be in talks to direct Akira. Are you eager to branch out?
Definitely. I want to try different things. Horror will always be my love [laughs], and I don’t think I’ll ever not do horror or step away from it completely, but yeah I want to try different things as well. Just to see what it would be to make, like, sci-fi or action stuff.
You seem to have a pretty good relationship with Warner Bros. right now. They seem rather happy with your work.
I’ve been very lucky in that Lights Out did really well and they’ve been very happy with how Annabelle turned out, so yeah.
Everyone thinks, Warner Bros. [equals] superheroes, Harry Potter, LEGO. Does that appeal to you or do you want to do your own thing?
I’d like to do a superhero movie.
What sort of superhero movie?
Something that would be a little bit more fun.
Brighter?
Yeah, like you know, I think the best Marvel movie for example is Guardians of the Galaxy.
Something that’s kinda wacky…
Yeah, but still grounded in reality.
There’s an absurdity to it and the film is very honest about it. Your Lights Out is a very serious film…
…but still with sort of comedic moments in it. Like the boyfriend using the headlights, stuff like that. I like having comedic stuff in it as well.
Warner Bros.
There’s a bit I realized wasn’t in Lights Out but probably could have been. I don’t know if your parents ever did this but my teachers and my parents did, when there was someone being rowdy, they flicked the lights on an off to stop the kids.
Is that a real thing? I’ve seen that in an episode of The Simpsons, I think.
“Don’t make me flick the lights on and off!”
Yeah! So why do that? What’s that going to do?
It’s disruptive.
It’s just annoying?
You’re in your own little world. It’s annoying. You need to stop. They’re messing with your reality. But it’s a thing a lot of people do and I can imagine it being the source of a lot of Lights Out scares, because you’ve got to keep playing with different tricks for your sequels, right?
Yeah, that’s the thing we want to do with the sequel, to make sure that it’s not just the same movie again. We want to do something different, so it’s worth seeing that.
Are you close to that? Have you found your approach?
We have, yes, we have discussed approaches for that.
You’ve discussed it, sure, but you’ve found it?
Yeah, I think so. Yeah.
I realize it’s super-super early. Is there anything you can tell us, for people who are excited?
No, I don’t think so. Not at this stage.
The Top 25 Best Horror Movie Sequels:
Top Photo: Warner Bros.
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
The Top 25 Horror Sequels
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25. Halloween II (2009)
Rob Zombie's Halloween remake didn't hold up to the original, but his ambitious sequel stirred up all the most interesting ideas from the Halloween sequels and served them on a gory, psychosexual platter. It's a divisive film but whether you love it or hate it, Halloween II's sheer audaciousness is worthy of praise.
Photo: Dimension Films
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24. Predator 2 (1990)
The alien hunter moved from the literal jungle to the urban jungle in this semi-futuristic sequel, in which a group of Los Angeles cops investigate a series of murders perpetrated by a camouflaged extra-terrestrial. Predator 2 doesn't have the same subversive streak as the original, and that's okay, because it's still fun, effective entertainment.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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23. Scream 2 (1997)
The first Scream changed the horror genre, possibly forever, and although the second film doesn't have the same impact it's still a very effective slasher, with smart characters, suspenseful set pieces, memorable deaths and a few genuinely shocking surprises.
Photo: Dimension Films
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22. Hannibal (2001)
Thomas Harris's over the top follow-up to The Silence of the Lambs became an over the top movie, spilling over with gran guignol flourish and outsized drama. Okay, so Hannibal isn't nearly as refined as its predecessor, but it's a gloriously gothic piece of entertainment, with a handful of unforgettably grotesque moments.
Photo: MGM
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21. A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge (1995)
Several of the Nightmare on Elm Street sequels are entertaining, but the second film may be the most tragic and horrifying, using Freddy Krueger not as an excuse for inventive death scenes but as a representation of the phobias and anxieties that swirl around a teenager's sexual identity crisis. Freddy's Revenge breaks some of the "rules" of the series, and some fans are still mad about that, but if you look past you'll find it's one of the most ambitious and unsettling films in the series.
Photo: New Line Cinema
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20. Final Destination 2 (2003)
The Final Destination movies are, more than even most slashers, all about elaborate death scenes. And never were the deaths more consistently glorious than in Final Destination 2. From the fantastic opening freeway chase to the spectacular dentistry fake-out and beyond, this sequel - once again about people who cheat death, and who become death's next victims through any means possible - features a lot of the highlights of a franchise which, let's be honest, had no shortage of them.
Photo: New Line Cinema
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19. Child's Play 2 (1990)
The killer doll Chucky was scary enough in Child's Play, but that film spent more time focusing on the adults than on the kid whose plaything turned evil. Child's Play 2 focuses on a child's experience, amplifying the horror and creating a more tragic atmosphere, because nobody believes the child's stories until it's way too late. And the Terminator sequence at a toy factory is a masterful climax, packed with action and nightmare fuel.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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18. The Purge: Anarchy (2014)
A national holiday when murder is legal is a great concept for a horror movie, but it wasn't until the first sequel, The Purge: Anarchy, that audiences finally got to witness the carnage in all of its glory. Frank Grillo plays a man who gets sidetracked from his own murderous mission, who can't help but save innocent lives in a world gone violently, imaginatively mad.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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17. Halloween H20 (1998)
The flailing Halloween series found its focus once again when original heroine Laurie Strode returned with a lifetime of personal baggage for (supposedly) one last duel with Michael Myers. Halloween H20 is a slick slasher but Jamie Lee Curtis's impressive performance puts the awkwardly-titled Halloween H20 over the top.
Photo: Dimension Films
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16. The Devil's Rejects (2005)
Rob Zombie's first film, House of 1,000 Corpses, was overblown and hard to watch. But somehow his sequel, The Devil's Rejects, made audiences forget all about that. It's a prurient and amoral crime thriller about a family of mass murderers on the run from the law, which - thanks to Zombie's overwhelming sentimentality for monsters - makes us care more about the unforgivable creeps than their victims.
Photo: Lionsgate
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15. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986)
Tobe Hooper through subtlety out the window for his second Texas Chainsaw Massacre, an overwhelming horror comedy about a DJ who gets embroiled in a cannibal family's plot to put human flesh in chili and a sheriff who plays to chainsaw duel to the bad guys to death. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 is a loud, chaotic descent into madness, with one of the most spectacular climaxes in horror movie history.
Photo: The Cannon Group
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14. The Purge: Election Year (2016)
If The Purge: Anarchy was the action movie fans of the original were waiting for, then The Purge: Election Year is the apotheosis of the franchise, combining horror, action and damning political commentary. A liberal politician, who plans to fix the country and outlaw "The Purge," becomes a target for assassins and hides out with oppressed communities who have plans to use The Purge to their bloody advantage as well. This is intelligent and challenging horror filmmaking, wrapped inside a brash and gory package.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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13. Bride of Chucky (1998)
Child's Play 2 may be the scariest film in the franchise, but Bride of Chucky is easily the most enjoyable. Chucky and his bride Tiffany (played spectacularly by Jennifer Tilly) are on a murderous road trip with two hapless teens in a sequel that finally acknowledges the absurdity of the whole "killer doll" premise and has fun with it, with great gags, unexpected twists and surprisingly fun characters.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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12. Hellbound: Hellraiser 2 (1988)
The violent delights of the original Hellraiser give way to demonic decadence in Hellbound: Hellraiser 2, a film that expands on the series' already complex mythology and ups the ante in terms of visual effects, makeup and depravity. This film features what may be the greatest depiction of literal Hell in movie history.
Photo: New World Pictures
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11. Gremlins 2: The New Batch (1990)
If the original Gremlins was horrifying subversion of Main Street America, then Gremlins 2 is a spot-on satire of corporate America, with the fiendish little imps undermining television stations, movie theaters and a billion dollar company. Joe Dante's already impressive imagination runs wild, with bizarre sight gags, fourth-wall breaks and mutated gremlins that get bigger brains, spider legs, vegetable faces and wings.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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10. Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)
The original Friday the 13th becomes, in the first (and best) sequel, a campfire story for future generations. Little do the new camp counselors know that there's a nugget of truth in the old legend of Jason Voorhees, and that he plans to kill them one by one. Only the heroine, who takes the horror genre seriously and finds a small amount of empathy for the madman, has a chance of surviving in this impressive, thoughtful, influential slasher classic, one that is superior to the original in almost every way.
Photo: Paramount Pictures
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9. Army of Darkness (1993)
The third film in the Evil Dead movie abandons any aspirations to genuine horror and focuses instead on daffy supernatural action-comedy, a medley that works impressively well when headlined by the dashing Bruce Campbell and directed by the wacky Sam Raimi. Our hero has been rocketed into the past and rescues King Arthur's court from an army of undead monsters, including his own evil doppelgänger, and spouts one hilarious and quotable line of dialogue after another.
Photo: Universal Pictures
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8. Inferno (1980)
Dario Argento's Suspiria is considered one of the scariest movies ever made, and his first follow-up - Inferno, about another all-powerful witch filling the world with vibrant, violent evil - might be even scarier. It's a stream-of-consciousness nightmare, flitting from one protagonist to another as they fall prey to supernatural influence, composed with terrifying and brilliant imagery and music. Inferno is difficult to describe, but impossible to ignore.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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7. The Exorcist III (1990)
The second film in the Exorcist series is one of the worst ever made, which led many to overlook The Exorcist III altogether. They missed out on a film that's arguably more frightening than The Exorcist was, an alternately elegant and phantasmagoric mystery about an aging detective (George C. Scott) investigating murders that make no sense, and which will haunt your nastier nightmares. Some of the shots in The Exorcist III are among the scariest ever filmed. The rest of the movie nearly follows suit.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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6. Dawn of the Dead (1978)
George Romero took the zombie apocalypse of his original, classic Night of the Living Dead and expanded it into a colorful, action-packed, gory satire of consumer culture. Dawn of the Dead shoves its heroes into a mall and dares them to want to leave, while an army of mindless ghouls tries constantly to break in. One of the most influential films in the horror genre, and with good cause.
Photo: United Film Distribution Company
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5. Day of the Dead (1985)
As beloved as Dawn of the Dead may be, time is proving even kinder to Romero's third zombie classic. Day of the Dead is an extended panic attack of a film, in which what may be the last few human beings on Earth fall victim to paranoia and utter madness as they fight to preserve or rid themselves of the last few vestiges of normalcy. Meanwhile, the zombies might be getting smarter. Terrifying and amazingly violent filmmaking, from start to finish.
Photo: United Film Distribution Company
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4. Wes Craven's New Nightmare (1994)
Wes Craven finally returned to the franchise he created, but he didn't just make another Nightmare on Elm Street sequel. He made a film in which his boogeyman, Freddy Krueger, tries to break into the real world because a series of ineffectual sequels made him a useless metaphor for our fears. And if our stories can't hold our fears, they're bound to become more dangerous in real life. Wes Craven's New Nightmare isn't a self-aware comedy, it's a disturbingly insightful examination of the whole horror genre, and an inverse, subversive retelling of the events of the original Nightmare on Elm Street from a wholly different point of view. And yes, it's scary as hell.
Photo: New Line Cinema
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3. Evil Dead II (1987)
Sam Raimi's low-low-low budget Evil Dead became a merely low-budget sequel, and the filmmaker's wild imagination makes the most of that added budget by turning the saga of a man trapped in a cabin in the woods with malevolent supernatural forces into one of the most wild and inventive horror movies ever produced. The bravura filmmaking techniques, cartoonish gore and bizarre storytelling in Evil Dead II became a flashpoint for the genre, inspiring and setting a high bar for nearly every filmmaker that followed.
Photo: Renaissance Pictures
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2. Aliens (1986)
Ridley Scott's influential "haunted house in space" sci-fi classic evolved into a full-fledged Vietnam War allegory in James Cameron's explosive sequel. What was once the story of a normal woman outmatched is now an action-packed saga of gun-toting macho marines dissolving into quivering masses in the face of a superior enemy, with spectacular monster effects and impressive writing, directing, and acting on every front. Aliens isn't just one of the best horror sequels, it's one of the best action movies and one of the best sci-fi movies too.
Photo: 20th Century Fox
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1. The Bride of Frankenstein (1935)
Everything people want from sequels can be found in The Bride of Frankenstein, a bold and funny and creepy follow-up to James Whale's original blockbuster horror classic. Innovative visual effects, fascinating characters, bizarre new themes and visual storytelling that was easily decades ahead of its time keep The Bride of Frankenstein feeling as fresh and exciting as ever. It's still one of the very best movies ever made, and it's certainly the best horror sequel.
Photo: Universal Pictures
