Since 2013 she’s been seen in more movies than Angelina Jolie. The films she appeared in have grossed over $1 billion at the box office. She doesn’t have much emotional range—her motions are largely confined to opening and closing her eyes—but in these politically correct times you can call her a doll and not fear sounding sexist.
She’s Annabelle, devil dolly.
The real life inspiration for Annabelle, the creepy, possessed toy from The Conjuring series, is safely locked away in ghost hunter Ed and Lorraine Warren’s cabinet of curiosities but her onscreen counterpart is back this weekend in Annabelle: Creation.
But what do we really know about the sinister plaything?
In real life the story began in 1970. A mother bought a vintage Raggedy Ann doll for her daughter Donna. Then it got weird. The doll moved around the apartment and left upsetting messages for her new owner. Freaked out, Donna called in a psychic who determined the spirit of a seven-year-old girl named Annabelle Higgins possessed the toy.
Enter the Warrens, “self-described “demonologists, ghost hunters and kooks.” After a failed exorcism they removed the doll from Donna’s apartment but the supernatural hijinks didn’t stop there. On the way home they claim the doll took control of their car, causing their power brakes and steering to fail. At the Warren house Annabelle continued to act out until they finally contained her evil in a specially built glass lock box. Currently she is on display in the warren’s Occult Museum, located in Lorraine Warren’s basement in Monroe, Connecticut.
In reel life the details are different. Movie Annabelle is a porcelain doll with a white ruffled dress, not a worn Raggedy Ann. Then there’s the invented backstory of the first prequel to The Conjuring movies. The closing credits to 2014’s Annabelle state, “The story, all names, characters and incidents portrayed in this production are fictitious.”
The story isn’t true but don’t worry, she’s still the wickedest doll since Chucky.
Annabelle begins in the late 1960s with a gift from John to his expectant wife Mia. “There’s something I want to give you,” he says. “Oh no,” she laughs, “the last time you said that I ended up pregnant.” He gives her Annabelle, a seemingly harmless antique doll, decked out in a lace wedding dress. The quiet peace of John and Mia’s life is broken by a Manson Family style home invasion, and even though Mia and John survive, strange things start happening in the wake of the attack. “Crazy people do crazy things, ma’am,” explains a detective before everyone starts to realize that Annabelle has something to do with the eerie goings on.
Annabelle: Creation goes back further, digging into why and how the dolly became so disturbed and disturbing. In the new film a doll maker and his wife lose their daughter Annabelle to a car accident. Years later one of her dolls appears to have a life of its own.
The new film will likely raise the hairs on the back of more than a few necks, but one thing is certain, the original doll is still the scariest of all. Visitors to the Occult Museum who mock the doll report having accidents on the way home and Lorraine’s son-in-law Tony Spera says Annabelle is the exhibit that terrifies him the most.
She doesn’t have much emotional range—her motions are largely confined to opening and closing her eyes—but the films she appeared in have grossed over $1 billion at the box office. She’s Annabelle, devil dolly, and she’s back to prove that you can’t keep a good doll down.
“Annabelle: Creation” is a second prequel to “The Conjuring”—following 2014’s “Annabelle”—to tell the story of the creepy, possessed doll before she was safely locked away in ghost hunter Ed and Lorraine Warren’s cabinet of curiosities. The first prequel, set in the 1960s, saw the creepy antique doll cause havoc in the lives of a pregnant woman and her husband.
This time around it’s an origin of evil story digging into why and how the child’s toy became so disturbed and disturbing. The preamble takes us back to the 1940s when kind-hearted dollmaker Mr. Mullins (Anthony LaPaglia) and his wife (Miranda Otto) witness their daughter Annabelle killed in a terrible—and rather dramatically filmed—accident.
Cut to twelve years later. The once kindly couple are now shells of their former selves, still wracked with grief over the loss of his daughter. Their rambling Californian house, once alive with activity is now a cobwebbed mausoleum. When a nearby orphanage shuts down the couple welcome six residents and their nun custodian Sister Charlotte (Stephanie Sigman) into their home. They both get something from the deal. Mr. and Mrs. Mullins hope the orphans will inject some soul into their lifeless home.
On the upside the young tenants have a place to live, a TV and a radio. “It’s as big as a castle,” they gush. “I guess that makes us princesses!” On the downside their high-spirited ways bring out the doll’s evil spirits.
“Annabelle: Creation” is a less-is-more horror movie. The scares are bare boned, small moments—a shadowy figure here, a slamming door there—that add up to an atmosphere of dread. Add in Linda (Lulu Wilson), a little demon battling girl with creepy, concerned eyes and a handful of good lines like, “Forgive me father for I am about to sin,” make an impression but everything else feels too tastefully restrained.
In movie math demons plus little kids equals “The Exorcist” but “Annabelle: Creation” isn’t so much scary as it is weird. Those looking for overt terror à la William Friedkin’s masterpiece will be disappointed.
Director David F. Sandberg—whose horror bona fides were well established after “Lights Out”—is unafraid to take his time and creating the dread. Except for a few frights near the end, unfortunately, audiences may leave the theatre feeling the same way, unafraid.
This prequel to “The Conjuring” proves that you can’t keep a good doll down. It tells the story of Annabelle, that movie’s creepy, possessed doll before she was safely locked away in ghost hunter Ed and Lorraine Warren’s cabinet of curiosities.
The story begins in the late 1960s with a gift from John (Ward Horton) to his expectant wife Mia (Annabelle Wallis). “There’s something I want to give you,” he says. “Oh no,” she laughs, “the last time you said that I ended up pregnant.” He gives her Annabelle, a seemingly harmless vintage doll, decked out in a lace wedding dress. “She fits right in,” Mia squeals. The quiet peace of John and Mia’s life is broken by a Manson Family style home invasion, and even though Mia and John survive, strange things start happening in the wake of the attack. “Crazy people do crazy things, ma’am,” explains a detective before everyone starts to realize that Annabelle has something to do with the weird goings on. Barbie she ain’t.
“Annabelle” is like a Haunted House attraction at Halloween. There’s nothing that’s really, truly soul-scorchingly scary inside, but it will give you a few good jolts. It’s part psychological drama, part Paranormal Activity and is filled with good weird atmosphere, but where “The Conjuring” had the benefit of two strong leads in Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson, “Annabelle’s” stars, Wallis and Horton, aren’t very compelling. She put me in the mind of Sharon Tate, which is appropriate for the time and story and Horton reminded me of… nothing much at all. More interesting leads might have made me care more about the story.
The actors may be milquetoasty, but the movie’s low key eerie atmosphere isn’t. Director John R. Leonetti works in echoes of “Rosemary’s Baby” and “Repulsion,” amping up the tension without the use of computer generated special effects. Instead he relies on silence and everyday sounds to make your skin crawl. The Self-Operating Sewing Machine from Hell and Satan’s Popcorn are effectively used in a movie that may be the quietest horror film ever made.
If the Paranormal Activity movies curdle your blood and The Conjuring kept you up at night, perhaps A Haunted House 2 will be more your style. A humorous hybrid of horror hits, it stars Marlon Wayans and Jaime Pressly in a sequel to the popular (but critically lambasted) 2013 comedy.
According to IMDB in the new film Wayans has “exorcised the demons of his ex” and is trying to start his life anew with his girlfriend. Unfortunately his new house turns out to be haunted and, even worse, his back-from-the-dead ex has moved in across the street.
It’s all played for laughs and will likely not give audiences nightmares but it would be interesting to know how the makers of movies like Sinister, The Possession, and Insidious feel about having their movies made fun of.
Some filmmakers are flattered.
Night of the Living Dead icon George A. Romero enjoyed the zombie takeoff Shaun of the Dead so much he asked star Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright to appear in Land of the Dead. The duo can be seen chained up in a 12-second cameo under a sign that reads Take Your Picture with a Zombie during the film’s carnival sequence.
But not everyone gets the joke.
Years ago Boris Karloff made it known he wasn’t very happy about a horror comedy. He was approached to play the Monster in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein but declined because he felt the duo’s brand of slapstick would be an insult to horror movies. Nonetheless he did some promo for the film—there are publicity pictures of him buying tickets at the box office—and later appeared in Abbott and Costello Meet the Killer, Boris Karloff and Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Another horror legend said yes to Meet Frankenstein but no to the comedy. The movie was the only other time Bela Lugosi played Dracula on the big screen and he played it straight.
“There is no burlesque for me,” he said. “All I have to do is frighten the boys, a perfectly appropriate activity. My trademark will be unblemished.”
Finally, the movie Young Frankenstein gave overdue credit to an old time movie studio technician. When Mel Brooks was prepping the film he discovered that Ken Strickfaden, the designer of the “mad scientist” electrical machinery in the Universal Frankenstein films, had all the equipment from the original movies stored in his garage. Strickfaden agreed to rent Mel the props and received a screen credit, which he hadn’t been given on the original films.
“The Conjuring,” the new film from “Saw” co-creator James Wan, plays like a mash-up of “The Exorcist” and a particularly spooky episode of “Ghost Hunters.” Based on true events it follows one of the most devilishly famous cases of real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
The ghostly action really begins when Warrens (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), self described “demonologists, ghost hunters… and kooks,” are called in to investigate the haunting of a rambling old farm house purchased by the Perron family, Roger (Ron Livingston) and Carolyn (Liv Taylor) and their five daughters. The house is creepy. Doors slam, someone or something gooses the girls while they sleep, clocks stop at 3:07 precisely and the smell of rotten meat hangs in the air.
This place makes the “Amityville Horror” home look like a country carnival haunted house.
The family can’t simply pack up and leave, because, as Ed says, “Sometimes when you get haunted it’s like stepping on gum—it follows you everywhere.”
It’s up to suburban Ghostbusters Ed and Lorraine to exercise their knowledge and exorcize the house’s demons.
For the most part “The Conjuring” is all about what you don’t see. For the first hour or more Wan builds tension with lo-fi effects like slamming doors, ghostly images only the girls can see or a dark cellar, and does a great job of moving you toward the edge of your seat.
Then, just when he has you hovering near the edge of your seat the action heats up and special effects become more elaborate, but still are used effectively and judiciously to ensure maximum effect.
“The Conjuring” is ooky and spooky. It’s a throwback to old school horror—eerie and squirmy enough to cause a white knuckle or two but tempered with several laughs, although I’m not sure all of them are intentional. You’ll find yourself screaming and laughing, occasionally at the same time.
The Conjuring, the new film from Saw co-creator James Wan, plays like a mash-up of The Exorcist and a particularly spooky episode of Ghost Hunters. Based on true events it follows one of the most devilishly famous cases of real life paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren.
The ghostly action begins when the Warrens (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga), self described “demonologists, ghost hunters… and kooks,” are called in to investigate the haunting of a rambling old farm house purchased by the Perron family, Roger (Ron Livingston) and Carolyn (Liv Taylor) and their five daughters. The house is creepy. Doors slam, someone or something gooses the girls while they sleep, clocks stop at 3:07 precisely and the smell of rotten meat hangs in the air.
It’s spooky stuff, but it’s not the only supernatural case the Warrens investigated that went on to find notoriety on the big screen.
The Haunting in Connecticut breathes the same air as The Town that Dreaded Sundown, Death Tunnel or any movie involving evil spirits, a haunted house, an old aboriginal cemetery or former insane asylum.
The film takes its story from the much documented life experience of Carmen Snedeker and her family who were tormented by evil forces after moving into a reconverted funeral home in Southington, Connecticut.
In the real life 1986 case Ed and Lorraine Warren were called in and declared the Snedeker house to be crawling with demons, the result of former funeral home workers practicing necrophilia on the site.
How accurate was the movie? “I was also told about scratching on the walls, blood and séances,” Lorraine Warren told MyRecordJournal.com. “That isn’t the type of things that were occurring within the house at all. The movie is very, very loosely based on the actual investigation.”
The eerie couple’s most notorious inquiry occurred at 112 Ocean Avenue in Amityville, Long Island. The paranormal experiences of the Lutz family, who claim to have been terrorized by supernatural forces after moving into a large Dutch Colonial house where Ronald DeFeo, Jr. shot and killed six members of his family, came to be known as The Amityville Horror. It has been the subject of ten movies, a number of books and was a memorable case for Lorraine Warren.
“The case itself has affected our personal lives more than any other case we’ve ever worked on in fifty-four years of research,” she said.
By Richard Crouse – Metro In Focus
