ANNABELLE *** (15, 99 mins) Starring Annabelle Wallis, Ward Horton, Tony Amendola, Alfre Woodard, Eric Ladin, Brian Howe, Kerry O’Malley

ACCORDING to the opening credits of Annabelle, dolls have frequently been used as conduits of evil.

Modern filmmakers have had great fun transforming inanimate figures into demonic vessels.

Anthony Hopkins fell under the spell of a possessive ventriloquist’s dummy in Richard Attenborough’s 1978 thriller Magic and mannequins ran amok the following year in the gruesome horror, Tourist Trap.

In the late 1980s, audiences squealed with delight at opening instalments of the Child’s Play and Puppet Master series.

More recently on the small screen, Doctor Who and his plucky companions faced malevolent mannequins and creepy life-sized dolls.

This prequel to the 2013 supernatural horror The Conjuring fleshes out the blood-soaked history of a garish figurine called Annabelle, which sent chills down the spine in the first film and remains under lock and key in the home of real-life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.

Director John R Leonetti replays the opening scene of The Conjuring then rewinds 12 months to sun-baked 1967 Santa Monica, California, for the start of the action.

The film appropriates elements of Rosemary’s Baby and The Omen for an increasingly silly tale of demonic possession and maternal sacrifice.

Leonetti achieves a couple of decent scares but when it comes to burrowing deep beneath our skin, he falls short.

Visual effects are sparing, which is more than can be said of Joseph Bishara’s deafening orchestral that turns up the volume to 11.

Wallis works through a dizzying array of screams, shrieks and caterwauls as the plot careens out of control around her, and we eventually lose interest.