'Annabelle' - A Real Life Ghost Story
Image Source: IGN
Annabelle seemed like just another spooky doll flick. Released in 2014, despite being panned by critics, it brought in 257 million at the box office on a budget of just 6 million. The creative team of Gary Dauberman (The Conjuring, It, The Nun) and John R Leonetti (Sleepy Hollow, Insidious, I Know Who Killed Me) didn’t miss. But behind the scenes of the seemingly standard horror is a tale far scarier than anything Dauberman could script.
The Origin Story
The original Annabelle was a Raggedy Ann doll, and she belonged to a pair of nursing students called Donna and Angie, who lived together in an apartment in 1970. Donna’s mother purchased it at a hobby store in Hartford.
The nurses reported that the Raggedy Ann would change positions when they left the room. They would find it sitting up or with its legs crossed. Eventually, they started finding notes with ‘Help me’ written in crayon. But one morning, when Donna and Angie were eating their breakfast, the toy’s cloth arms levitated onto the table right in front of their eyes. The women brought the doll to a psychic who held a séance and said she felt the presence of a 6-year-old girl called Annabelle trapped in the toy. The psychic elaborated further, saying the child was killed in a car accident nearby.
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Image Source: The Mirror
Out of fear, Donna and Angie treated the toy like a child; they sat at the table when they ate and put it to bed at night. But soon, the occurrences escalated. Lou, the fiance of one of the nurses, had a nightmare about Annabelle trying to strangle him when he stayed over at the apartment. He awoke and threw the doll across the room. Seven slash marks are said to then have appeared on his body.
Donna and Angie then contacted a priest, Father Cooke, to perform an exorcism on the doll. He claimed Annabelle was possessed by a demon and suggested they remove it from the house.
This was when The Occult Museum, owned by Ed and Lorraine Warren (as featured in the movies), came into the picture. When the Warrens took possession of Annabelle, Ed claims the brakes and steering failed repeatedly on the drive from Hartford to their museum in Monroe, Connecticut. The doll still exists and is kept behind glass and blessed regularly by the local priest.
A Haunted Set?
But the ghost story doesn’t end there. While filming, the cast and crew reported mysterious goings on. Production notes report props being moved in locked studios (such as a piano bench) and unexplained power outages throughout the shoot.
In an interview, Madison Iseman, star of Annabelle Comes Home, witnessed this on set:
“One time in particular, after we were filming a scene downstairs. At the end of the scene, we'd run up the stairs and go past the Warrens' bedroom. And every time we ran past the door, Annabelle was in a different position. There was not enough time for someone to go up there and move the doll. So ... we don't know how that happened. She would be in either the rocking chair, or sitting on the bed."
Image Source JoBlo
Mckenna Grace, who played Judy Warren in the same film, also said:
“When all of us were on set together for the first time, the lights went out and we were all freaking out and asking, ‘Annabelle, are you there?’ Then, the lights turned back on and my nose was bleeding so heavily. It happens sometimes because of allergies but not this heavy — as soon as I left set to get a tissue, it stopped.”
Annabelle is one of nine movies in The Conjuring Universe, all based around entities that the Warren family has encountered. The Warrens were involved in many high-profile ghost cases, including the Enfield Poltergeist, The Amityville House, and the Peron Family (The Conjuring). Lorraine Warren, the last survivor of the couple, unfortunately, died in 2019, so the collection is being cared for by their son-in-law. Their famous museum is currently closed and looking for a new home.
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