Annabelle: Creation has been banned in Lebanon.
Though the film passed General Security’s Censorship Bureau, the censorship committee failed to convene before Thursday. Arab News reported that the film’s fate had been put on hold, with Lebanese theatres asked to delay screening the film.
The verdict was passed down by Father Abdu Abu Kasm and Father Athanasius Shahwan, the former of which is the head of the Christian media committee, and it has been a resounding no.
According to Stepfeed, the film has been banned for good.
Though no reason for the ban has been stated, the film’s plot reportedly caused concern among the screening’s attendees, who thought it offended Christian values.
The film’s plot concerns how a doll becomes possessed by a demon, a hallmark of horror films for the past several decades; one could speculate, too, that the film's ban has to do with the presence of a demonic nun, another hallmark of horror film. Clearly, an opportunity existed here to ban the film for a variety of other reasons, such as lazily adopting Hollywood's most exhausted horror tropes without a hint of creativity, but the film's censors seem as out-of-the-box as its creators.
Lebanon banned the film Wonder Woman earlier this year, another Warner Bros. Pictures release, though for reasons more political than religious.
