The success of James Wan’s The Conjuring last year, like that of Paranormal Activity back in 2009, points to a wave of purely affective horror cinema, less concerned with feeding on social anxieties of their time than with crafting jump scares and a spooky atmosphere. In doing so, these films add up to little more than empty thrill rides that quickly fade once the movies end. So Annabelle, John R. Leonetti’s prequel to The Conjuring, theoretically has…
