For a while it looked like modern horror would be defined by films that delighted in excessive gore and torture, less movies than endurance tests designed to push audiences to the brink (and then comfort them just enough that they'd be back for the sequel the following Halloween). But with a rash of found footage movies that implied more than they ever showed, it seemed that horror was being reclaimed, if not exactly by subtlety, then by the ability to coax fear out of more than just severe violence. This reached its apex last summer with "The Conjuring," a based-on-a-true-story studio horror movie that earned an R-rating based on how bone-chillingly scary it was. And where there's a hit, there's a franchise, especially in the low-cost world of horror, so a little over a year after "The Conjuring" made audiences pee themselves in fright comes "Annabelle," a prequel/spin-off centered around the original film's haunted doll.
This new movie opens with...
