‘Annabelle’ Movie: What Happened In ‘The Conjuring’? About The Prequel

“Annabelle” hit theaters to scare moviegoers on Friday, Oct. 3, but the evil doll already has a history with the box office: She appeared in the 2013 horror flick “The Conjuring.” For those who missed “The Conjuring,” the film was based on real events witnessed by paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren. While the Warrens have come across numerous supernatural presences since they founded the New England Society for Psychic Research in 1952, the movie focused on the Perrons, a family who moved into a haunted Rhode Island farmhouse in 1971. Before viewers could dive into the tale of the dark presence that terrorized the Perrons, “The Conjuring” set the mood by telling the tale of Annabelle, an evil porcelain doll. In “The Conjuring,” two women and a man explained that the doll they owned appeared to move. It had started off with simply a hand or leg being in a different position than when they left it. However it soon escalated to the doll reappearing in a different room than it was left in – “like it was moving around by itself.”

While the obvious answer was someone playing a prank on them, the group insisted that the doll was possessed. They spoke to a medium who revealed that a 7-year-old girl named Annabelle Higgins had died in the apartment, and that she was lonely and “took a liking” to the doll. Since the two women who lived in the apartment felt bad for Annabelle Higgins, they gave her permission to inhabit the doll – and that’s when things took a frightening turn. They came home one day to find their room trashed and red crayon all over the wall. Written repeatedly in a child’s handwriting was the phrase “Miss Me?” “Annabelle” seems less confident when it comes to its secondhand plot, which includes such standbys as self-shutting doors and self-popping popcorn. Alfre Woodard plays the neighbor who believes that Mia isn’t just seeing things; Tony Amendola is the priest who helps the family. But, as the introductory title card explains, haunted dolls have been around “since the beginning of civilization,” which leaves room for Annabelle to pop up many times again. “Annabelle” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). Violence, blood and a possessed elevator.

The women became frightened and one of them decided to immediately throw the doll in the dumpster outside. However later that night they awoke to pounding on their apartment door. When they went to the door they discovered a note in the same handwriting: “Miss Me?” But that wasn’t even the most frightening part. A second bang came from inside their apartment, and when they opened up a closet door they found the Annabelle doll sitting inside. Afraid and not sure how to get rid of Annabelle, they turned to Ed and Lorraine Warren. The paranormal investigators then revealed that the girls hadn’t allowed a ghost named Annabelle to enter their doll – it was something much powerful and manipulative than a ghost, an inhuman spirit. In “The Conjuring,” Ed revealed that an inhuman spirit is “something that has never walked the earth in human form.” “It’s something demonic,” he warned them. The inhuman spirit never possessed the doll, but instead used it as a conduit. “Demonic spirits don’t possess things,” Lorraine explained. “They possess people. It wanted to get inside you.” The Warrens removed the doll from the home and brought it back to a special room where they kept dangerous objects. Annabelle was kept locked in a box, however the doll reappeared later in the movie – out of the box. The spirits who inhabited the home of the Perron’s were angry with Ed and Lorraine Warren, and Annabelle was used terrorize their young daughter, Julie.