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 From the Critics From RT Users Like You! ||||| Fear not, franchise-phobes. It’s unnecessary to prep for the sneakily effective “Annabelle: Creation” by first biting your nails through James Wan’s retro fright-fest “The Conjuring” (2013), then massaging your temples over John R. Leonetti’s abysmal “Annabelle” (2014). 
 
 Though “Creation” marks the third on-screen appearance of everyone’s favorite demonically possessed doll, the movie is actually something of a prequel to a prequel, taking place a decade before the previous installment. Could we call it a proquelogue? Probably. Should we? Merriam-Webster says probably not. 
 
 Nevertheless, the film affixes yet another horrific history to its wicked, wooden adversary (the eye-roller of a tagline reads “You don’t know the real story,” as if that’s the viewer’s fault at this point), positing that the doll originally belonged to the daughter of a kindly toymaker (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife (Miranda Otto), who reside in a remote California farmhouse. 
 
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 Locked away in the wake of the girl’s tragic death, the doll re-emerges 12 years later, just after the still grief-stricken couple take in six girls from a Catholic orphanage, along with their devout guardian (Stephanie Sigman). Two young’uns in particular — fearful Janice (Talitha Bateman), whose battle with polio has left her in a leg brace, and the sunny Linda (Lulu Wilson), whose naivete keeps her isolated from the older girls — find themselves drawn toward the daughter’s bedroom, where a demonic presence lies in wait, with violent intent. 
 
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 On paper, staging the “Annabelle” series in reverse sounds like the same recipe for disaster that’s made Fox’s “X-Men” franchise a continuity mess. So credit returning “Annabelle” writer Gary Dauberman and newly drafted director David F. Sandberg (“Lights Out”) with delivering what’s instead a tense and terrifying genre workout, the kind of old-school chiller that starts slow, patiently turning the screws and introducing a surplus of creepy set pieces (a creaky dumbwaiter here, a covered well there) before making potent use of each in a brutal, blood-curdling crescendo of a third act. Sandberg, an impish traditionalist inspired in equal measure by William Castle (“House on Haunted Hill”) and John Carpenter (“Halloween”), casts his camera deep into shadows that seem to swell with the horrors they hide. Here, he forces uncertain audiences to lean into the dark, sometimes (but, crucially, not always) springing a nasty surprise on them once there. 
 
 “Creation” owes much to last year’s “Ouija: Origin of Evil,” another better-than-expected prequel to a soulless studio cash-in: a period setting, a central trio of strong women, demonic possession, similar jump-scares, even the same lead actress (Wilson, whose matter-of-fact moxie here makes for an appealing inversion of her “Ouija” role). But then again, “Origin of Evil” borrowed enough from Sandberg’s original “Lights Out” short that it’s tempting to conclude any turnabout is fair play. And if some light deja vu is the price horror fans must pay for a mainstream offering this spine-tingling, most will still come away feeling spooked and satisfied. 
 
 ★★★½ 
 
 ANNABELLE: CREATION 
 
 Directed by David F. Sandberg. Written by Gary Dauberman. Starring Stephanie Sigman, Talitha Bateman, Lulu Wilson. At Boston Common, Fenway, suburbs. 109 minutes. R (horror violence and terror). 
 
 Isaac Feldberg can be reached by e-mail at isaac.feldberg@ 
 
 globe.com , or on Twitter at @i_feldberg ||||| Like a reoccurring bad dream, the possessed doll Annabelle is back in theaters for the fourth time in four years. Introduced by producer James Wan after the success of his bloody, unsavory “Saw” movies, the not-quite-natural-looking doll’s frozen smile, staring eyes and tendency to attack people when the lights go out made her the breakout star of the films. 
 
 Still, none of those movies was as sinister as they hoped to be. Now “Annabelle: Creation” gives that sentient devil doll the eerie and unsettling prequel she deserves. The earlier films were never this deliciously twisted. Buckle up your belt or this moan-inducing, female-centric supernatural thriller will scare your pants off. 
 
 Director David F. Sandberg and writer Gary Dauberman understand that the best way to conjure audience anxiety is to cross different emotional states one step at a time. First, build a false calm by introducing good characters to care about. Move ahead to tension, creeping us out with hints that something, somewhere is stalking our on-screen surrogates. Then pick up the pace, shift into redline overdrive with a full-on barrage of gruesomeness, and hit the finish line at top speed. 
 
 The story unchains itself from its forerunners’ painfully bland narrative treadmill, stepping up to impressively creative territory. With echoes of “The Exorcist,” it introduces us to a solid American family to see them torn apart by tragedy beyond human control. 
 
 Anthony LaPaglia gives a no-foolishness performance as Samuel Mullins, a doll maker selling creations fashioned from ceramics, wood, hair and fabric. It’s a successful one-man business in the pre-Barbie 1940s, and he lives happily with his wife and 7-year-old daughter Bee in a substantial rural house. The Mullins are good, churchgoing folks, their faith underscored by the explicit and implied crucifixes seen throughout the film. But when a calamity strikes, their prayers for relief are answered in a way far from divine. If dolls can be made out of anything, they can be made into anything. 
 
 Years after that misfortune, Samuel and his wife open their large, lonely home to house six orphaned girls and their kindly supervising nun. The building is decrepit now, with floors that creak and one child’s room with a door frame marked with odd growth marks. That room is always kept locked, but little girls can be curious, even if it opens gateways they would never want to cross. 
 
 Annabelle: Creation ★★★½ out of 4 stars Rating: R for horror violence and terror. In English and Spanish. 
 
 There’s a growing sense that it all could end badly. The many crosses begin to appear upside down or slanted sideways to resemble an X marking a doomed character for death. Calling the film’s impressively staged frights well-executed feels apt, especially as knives and hatchets come into play. The terrors unleashed on the troupe are so intense that I actually felt tempted to avert my eyes. 
 
 The entire cast has presence and depth, especially the young actresses who draw the most attention. I thought the youngest were the best of all. Talitha Bateman is heartbreaking as a sweet girl slowed by polio. And as her best friend, Lulu Wilson equals her outstanding work confronting possession and malevolent spirits in last year’s “Ouija: Origin of Evil.” 
 
 While hardly groundbreaking or inventive, this slick spook show works. It’s not a castoff collection of horror tropes but a surprisingly thoughtful, well-made and truly chilling nightmare. It employs fashionable scare tactics such as jump scares, but sparingly. It refines the basic components of the genre into a coherent film, then adds a layer of emotional gravitas and deals un-ironically with basic issues others ignore. How can a lightweight toy develop the momentum and power to violently attack a person? When the film exposes what’s hidden beneath that porcelain face, it’s extra bloodcurdling. 
 
 “Annabelle: Creation” is a refreshingly intelligent and taut shot in the arm for a genre that badly needs it.
– The creepy doll that frightened in The Conjuring (2013) and Annabelle (2014) is back in a prequel to a prequel, in which viewers meet the toy maker who created her. When tragedy strikes, Annabelle is locked away in a room in his California home—until curious orphans discover her. Critics are giving it a 69% "fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Samples: Presenting Annabelle's story in reverse may sound like a "recipe for disaster," but Annabelle: Creation is not a disaster. It's "spine-tingling," writes Isaac Feldberg at the Boston Globe. He describes it as "the kind of old-school chiller that starts slow, patiently turning the screws" before "a brutal, blood-curdling crescendo of a third act." Feldberg adds most will "come away feeling spooked and satisfied." Its scenes are "cheekily effective," writes Jeannette Catsoulis at the New York Times, who reserves most of her praise for director David F. Sandberg. He "proves a master of the flash-scare, a nifty choreographer of precipitous timing and striptease visuals. But he's also adroit with more leisurely horrors, like the snap-crackle-pop of the murderous shade flexing for the kill," she writes. Julia Cooper at the Globe and Mail, however, says the film is "as lifeless as an old doll." It doesn't "concern itself with details such as motive" and features a script "full of mawkish dialogue weakly delivered by the film's child actors." To boot, "Sandberg does nothing to update his horror film from some of the genre's more damaging stereotypes," including disability as weakness, Cooper writes. For Colin Covert, though, this is "the eerie and unsettling prequel [Annabelle] deserves." He calls the film "impressively creative" and "refreshingly intelligent"—a "taut shot in the arm for a genre that badly needs it." As for frights, this Annabelle installment is "the scariest one yet," he writes at the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Buckle up your belt or this moan-inducing, female-centric supernatural thriller will scare your pants off."