From Annabelle: Creation, photo courtesy Warner Bros.
Evil is sneaky.
In Annabelle: Creation, you just never knew where that dastardly doll was going to turn up next. Under the stairs? In a closet? A child’s bedroom? In your very own bunk bed? Yeah, you never knew where you might see Annabelle. But at least with the doll, you knew what she looked like. Once Annabelle’s evil moves into a living being, things get that much more tricky.
Such is the sneaky nature of evil—something we saw time and time again in the movies this year. Wonder Woman’s nemesis hid in the guise of a trusted friend. In War for the Planet of the Apes, the main evil-doer looked a lot more like us than the movie’s good guys did. In Logan, our titular hero must face down his own evil doppelganger.
The message is as clear as it is chilling: Evil can look a lot like us.