Funny how there aren’t any movies about creepy-looking dolls that stay inanimate. The tradition of killer miniatures is a rich and varied one, stretching from smart-mouthed icon Chucky to Twilight Zone resident Talking Tina to the gang of supremely ticked-off slave toys in Tales From the Hood’s third quarter. The unsettling lifelessness of a doll’s visage has made it a reliable source of horror in the past, and the Conjuring franchise struck its own vein of gold with the homicidal, pigtailed Annabelle. The precocious little psychopath got her own starring vehicle in 2014 with the simply-titled spinoff Annabelle, and now we’re taking a step back in time to witness her dark baptism in blood.

The new trailer for Annabelle: Creation returns us to the early 20th century, as a family struggles to move forward after losing their daughter. The father of the house, a dollmaker, seals his late daughter’s displaced soul in the vessel of the demonic plaything and then locks it away when it proves too evil to control. But as the dollmaker and his wife attempt to convert their house into a home for the parentless, Annabelle gets a little jealous and decides to take her frustration out on the new residents. One little girl in particular draws the wrath of Annabelle, betrayed by the fatal slowness of those motorized chairs that slide up staircases.

Annabelle: Creation may fall into the Conjuring cinematic universe, but Lights Out is this film’s closest relative, sharing the director David F. Sandberg and his flair for combining shock with the stick-to-your-ribs horror of disturbance. Though the trailer above gives away a lot of the frights, they look unsettling enough to retain their power even without the element of surprise. The film stabs its way into theaters on August 11, at which point families will return home to diligently burn all vintage dolls they may or may not own.

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